

Rnnlr T 5 Z S N Z 0 
Copyright N° 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 
— 


WILLIAM 

THE WORKS OF ' Cj tf 

MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 


WITH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONS BY 
HIS DAUGHTER, ANNE RITCHIE 

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES 

Volume VIII. 


THE NEWCOMES 



















the effect of the general’s song 




THE 


NEWCOMES 


MEMOIRS OF 

A MOST RESPECTABLE FAMILY 


EDITED BY 

ARTHUR PENDENNIS, Esq. 


BY 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY RICHARD DOYLE 



HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 


1 899 

r E ci d 
— rp*j 



Tzs 

T 3 2 5T] 


J¥ ’ 


TOo copses deceived* 



Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. 
AH rights reserved. 





CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION . . .... xiii 

CHAP. 

I. THE OVERTURE AFTER WHICH THE CURTAIN RISES 

UPON A DRINKING CHORUS 1 

II. COLONEL NEAVCOME’S WILD OATS . . . .13 

III. COLONEL NEWCOME’S LETTER-BOX . . . .26 

IY. IN WHICH THE AUTHOR AND THE HERO RESUME 

THEIR ACQUAINTANCE ..... 35 

Y. CLIVE’S UNCLES ....... 43 

VI. NEWCOME BROTHERS ...... 58 

VII. IN WHICH MR. CLIVE’S SCHOOL-DAYS ARE OVER . 68 

VIII. MRS. NEWCOME AT HOME (a SMALL EARLY PARTY) 76 

IX. MISS honeyman’s 91 

X. ETHEL AND HER RELATIONS . . . .104 

xi. at mrs. ridley’s . . . . . .115 

XII. IN WHICH EVERYBODY IS ASKED TO DINNER . 129 

XIII. IN WHICH THOMAS NEWCOME SINGS HIS LAST 

SONG ........ 137 

XIV. PARK LANE . . . . . . .144 

XV. THE OLD LADIES . . . . . . .155 

XVI. IN WHICH MR. SHERRICK LETS HIS HOUSE IN 

FITZROY SQUARE . . . . . .165 

XVII. A SCHOOL OF ART . . . . . .171 

XVIII. NEW COMPANIONS . . . . . .180 

rii 



CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 


THE COLONEL AT HOME . . . . . 

CONTAINS MORE PARTICULARS OF THE COLONEL 
AND HIS BRETHREN . . . . . 

IS SENTIMENTAL, BUT SHORT . . . . 

DESCRIBES A VISIT TO PARIS ; WITH ACCIDENTS 
AND INCIDENTS IN LONDON 
IN WHICH WE HEAR A SOPRANO AND A CON- 
TRALTO ....... 

IN WHICH THE NEWCOME BROTHERS ONCE MORE 
MEET TOGETHER IN UNITY 
IS PASSED IN A PUBLIC-HOUSE 

IN WHICH COLONEL NEWCOME’s HORSES ARE SOLD 
YOUTH AND SUNSHINE . . . . . 

IN WHICH CLIVE BEGINS TO SEE THE WORLD . 
IN WHICH BARNES COMES A-WOOING 

A RETREAT 

MADAME LA DUCHESSE . . . . . 

barnes’s courtship . 

LADY KEW AT THE CONGRESS . . . . 

THE END OF THE CONGRESS OF BADEN 
ACROSS THE ALPS ...... 

IN WHICH M. DE FLORAC IS PROMOTED . 
RETURNS TO LORD KEW . . . . . 

IN WHICH LADY KEW LEAVES HIS LORDSHIP 
QUITE CONVALESCENT . 

AMONGST THE PAINTERS . . . . . 

RETURNS FROM ROME TO PALL MALL 

AN OLD STORY ...... 

INJURED INNOCENCE . . . . . 

RETURNS TO SOME OLD FRIENDS 


PAGE 

185 

193 

203 

211 

224 

237 

250 

261 

271 

280 

298 

307 

321 

332 

340 

349 

367 

375 

387 

394 

406 

418 

426 

439 

451 


i 


CONTENTS 


IX 


CHAP. PAGE 

XLIV. IN WHICH MR. CHARLES HONEYMAN APPEARS 

IN AN AMIABLE LIGHT . . . .461 

XLY. A STAG OF TEN . . . . . .474 

XL VI. THE HOTEL DE FLORAC ... 481 

XLVII. CONTAINS TWO OR THREE ACTS OF A LITTLE 

COMEDY . . . . . . .491 

XLVIII. IN WHICH BENEDICK IS A MARRIED MAN . 509 

XLIX. CONTAINS AT LEAST SIX MORE COURSES AND 

TWO DESSERTS . . . . .518 


L. 

CLIVE IN NEW QUARTERS 



. 

526 

LI. 

AN OLD FRIEND 



• 

533 

in. 

FAMILY SECRETS 



. 

542 

LIII. 

IN WHICH KINSMEN FALL OUT 



• 

553 

LIV. 

HAS A TRAGICAL ENDING 



• 

571 

LV. 

barnes’s skeleton closet . 



• 

577 

LVI. 

ROSA QUO LOCORUM SERA MORATUR 



• 

586 

LVII. 

ROSEBURY AND NEWCOME 



• 

593 

LVIII. 

“ ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE ” . 



• 

611 

LIX. 

IN WHICH ACHILLES LOSES BRISEIS 



• 

618 

LX. 

IN WHICH WE WRITE TO THE COLONEL 


• 

637 

LXI. 

IN WHICH WE ARE INTRODUCED 

TO 

A 

NEW 



NEWCOME 

• 


• 

642 

LXII. 

MR. AND MRS. CLIVE NEWCOME 

• 


• 

647 

LXIII. 

MRS. CLIVE AT HOME 

• 


• 

655 

LXIV. 

ABSIT OMEN .... 

• 


- 

664 

LXV. 

IN WHICH MRS. CLIVE COMES INTO HER 

FORTUNE 

670 

LXVI. 

IN WHICH THE COLONEL AND THE NEWCOME 



ATHENvEUM ARE BOTH LECTURED 

• 

• 

681 

LXVII. 

NEWCOME AND LIBERTY . 

• 

• 

• 

690 

LXVIII. 

A LETTER AND A RECONCILIATION 


* 

* 

697 


X 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

LXIX. 

LXX. 

LXXI. 

LXXII. 

LXXIII. 

LXXIY. 

LXXY. 

LXXYI. 

LXXVII. 

LXXVIII. 

LXXIX. 

LXXX. 


PAGE 

THE ELECTION . . . . . .703 

CHILTERN HUNDREDS . . . . .715 

IN WHICH MRS. CLIVE NEWCOMERS CARRIAGE IS 

ORDERED . . . . . . .722 

BELISARIUS . . . . . . .732 

IN WHICH BELISARIUS RETURNS FROM EXILE . 739 

IN WHICH CLIVE BEGINS THE WORLD . .747 

FOUNDER’S DAY AT GREY FRIARS . . .756 

CHRISTMAS AT ROSEBURY . . . .767 

THE SHORTEST AND HAPPIEST IN THE WHOLE 

HISTORY .... ... 774 

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR GOES ON A PLEASANT 

ERRAND .... ... 777 

IN WHICH OLD FRIENDS COME TOGETHER . .785 

IN WHICH THE COLONEL SAYS “ ADSUM ” WHEN 

HIS NAME IS CALLED . • . ,796 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE EFFECT OF THE GENERAL’S SONG 


. Frontispiece 


JOHN HARMAN BECHER 

RUNJHEET SINGH AND MAJOR TOOMBS . 
A PICKLE AND A ROD .... 

AM RHEIN 1. ..... 

AM RHEIN II. ..... 

MUSICIANS ...... 

A TRAVELLER ..... 

A BENCH IN SWITZERLAND . 

BERNE ...... 

MAL DE MER BLOWING A LITTLE FRESH 

LE PORTRAIT (CLIVE NEWCOME) 


MR. BARNES NEWCOME AT HIS CLUB 
AN ASTOUNDING PIECE OF INTELLIGENCE 
AN EVENING AT ASTLEY’s 

gandish’s ...... 

“ HAVE YOU KILLED MANY MEN WITH 
SWORD, UNCLE ] ” . . . . 

MR. HONEYMAN AT HOME 
“ FAREWELL ”..... 


THIS 


page 

xiv 

page 

xix 

55 

XX 

55 

xxiii 

55 

xxiii 

55 

xxiv 

55 

XXV 

/ 

55 

xxvi 

55 

xxvii 

,, xxviii 


xxix 

ce page 

66 ' 

>> 

150/ 

>> 

166^ 


176 1/ 


198 1 

55 

234 V 

55 

270 ^ 

55 

320 V 


FAREWELL 


xi 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


xii 

the explosion . . . . . . To face page 364 

LADY WHITTLESEA’s CHAPEL — LADY KEW’S 


CARRIAGE STOPS THE WAY 

• 

• 

• 

)> 

466 * 

A PROPOSAL 

• 

• 

• 

>) 

538 i 

THE COLONEL TELLS SIR BARNES 

A BIT 

OF 

HIS 



MIND . ... 

• 

• 

• 


564 P 

ROSA RETURNS THANKS 

• 

• 

• 

5J 

590 V 

SIR BARNES NEWCOME IN TROUBLE 

• 

• 

)> 

612 y 

SENTENCE IN THE CASE OF THE 

MARQUIS 

OF 



FARINTOSH 

• 

• 

• 

5> 

634 V 

“ SIR BARNES NEWCOME ON THE 

AFFECTIONS ” 

>> 

Cl 

oo 

oo 

NEWCOME VERSUS NEWCOME . 


• 

• 

JJ 

708 / 

“ TO BE SOLD ” 

- 

0 

• 

JJ 

732 

A FRIEND IN NEED 

• 

• 

. 


774 


INTRODUCTION 


TO 

THE NEWCO M E S 

i8 S3~i8s5 


Part I. 

The old aunt with whom my grandmother had lived as a 
child, and to whose care my father also had been sent from 
India, was still living at Fareham, in Hampshire, when my 
sister and I, children of a fourth generation, succeeded to all 
the old traditions — to the little white beds in the upper room, to 
the gooseberry bushes and raspberries in the garden that stretched 
to the river-bank ; we too made cowslip-balls in the meadows 
(how often we had heard of them before we came to Fareham). 
We too had pattens to wear when the rain swept along the village 
street, and willow plates of our own, and cherry-pie on Sundays. 
We were in cheerful awe of the old aunt, but very fond of her. 
We called her Aunt Becher, but her other name I do believe was 
Miss Martha Honeyman. She was very strict and outspoken, but 
very kind. She used to net little silk purses to give us, with half 
sovereigns shining through the meshes, and she would send us 
charming letters in her delicate handwriting. Her old house stood 
in the village, with a high roof, and a garden full of flowers ; it 
was as fragrant within as without. I can remember the great 
blue china pot of pot-pourri standing in the corner of the shallow 
carved staircase, up and down which my father had run as a 
little boy at the beginning of the century. 

In the low-pitched parlour hung the pictures — a Sir Joshua 
among them — portraits of a generation not so far removed from 
my childish days as now, hidden away, as it is, by succeeding 


XIV 


THE NEWCOMES 


lives, “ ou sous son pere on retrouve encore son pere, corame 
l’onde sous 1’onde, dans une mer sans fond.” 

The stern rule of those Spartan times at the end of the last 
century did not always quell the wild spirits of that rising genera- 
tion. I have heard that the Bechers were adventurous and excit- 
able people ; many of them went to India, where their names are 
still remembered. My grandmother has often told me that in her 
youth the mother of the family never called the eldest daughter 
anything but “ Miss Becher ” ; as for the little granddaughters, 
they were invariably “ Miss Harriet ” and “ Miss Nancy.” There 
is a pretty description of Mrs. Becher in the “ Roundabout Papers.” 
She was my father’s great-grandmother. “ She was eighty years 
of age,” he says ; “ a most lovely and picturesque old lady, with 
a long tortoishell cane, with a little puff or tour of snow-white (or 
was it powdered?) hair under her cap, with the prettiest little 
black velvet slippers and high heels you ever saw. She had a 
grandson a lieutenant in the navy ; son of her son, a captain in 
the navy ; grandson of her husband, a captain in the navy. She 
lived for scores and scores of years in a dear little old Hamp- 
shire town inhabited by the wives, widows, daughters of navy 
captains, admirals, lieutenants. . . .” 

“ Miss Becher,” as her mother called her, was, when I knew 
her, nearly forty years after, a little dignified old lady, in a flaxen 
front, with apple cheeks and a blue shawl, holding out her wel- 
coming arms to the various generations in turn as they ran into 
them. When she died she left the Sir Joshua to her eldest nephew, 
the Admiral, and her brother’s picture out of the parlour to my 
grandmother, the only surviving daughter, once Miss Nancy. 
Now in turn it hangs with its red coat upon our parlour wall. 
We are all very fond of our great-grandfather, with his red coat 
and lace ruffles. We think perhaps he may have been painted by 
Coates. He is a young man, some five-and-twenty years of age, 
with an oddly familiar face, impulsive, inquisitive. His name was 
John Harman Becher, and he too went olit to India, and did good 
work, and died young, along with so many others belonging to 
those eventful days. He was born in April 1764, and died about 
1800. 

Fareham itself, with its tall church spire and its ringing chimes, 
was a Miss Austen-like village, peopled by naval officers and 



JOHN HARMAN BECHER 




































. 





























































































































INTRODUCTION 


xv 


spirited old ladies, who played whist every night of their lives, 
and kept up the traditions of England not without some asperity.* 
Among other things which my grandmother has often described 
to us was the disastrous news of Nelson’s death, which brought 
them all to tears in that same sunny parlour where a few years 
later a little boy sat laboriously writing to his mother in India. 
One letter, the earliest we have, is addressed to “ Mrs. R. Thack- 
eray, care of Messrs. Palmer, Calcutta, per Prince of Orange .” 
It took a long time to write, and six months to reach its journey’s 
end, and is dated from Fareham in 1817. 

“ My dear Mama, — I hope you are quite well. I have given 
my dear grandmama a kiss ; my Aunt Ritchie is very good to me. 
I like Chiswick ; there are so many good boys to play with. St. 
James’s Park is a very fine place. St. Paul’s Church too I like 
very much ; it is a finer place than I expected. I hope Captain 
Smyth is well ; give my love to him, and tell him that he must bring 
you home to your affectionate son, William Thackeray.” 

“ William got so tired of his pen, he could not write longer 
with it,” says his great-aunt Becher, in a postscript to this Ind- 
ian letter, “ so he hopes you will be able to read his pencil. 
. . . He drew me your house in Calcutta, not omitting his mon- 
key looking out of the window and black Betty at the top dry- 
ing towels, and he told me of the numbers you collected on his 
birthdays in that large room he pointed out to us !” There are 
also a few words from an Uncle Charles, written under the seal : 
“ My dear sister Anne, I have seen my dear little nephew, and 
am delighted with him.” How all this recalls the early chap- 
ters of the “ Newcomes !” 

Besides these postscripts, there is a faintly pencilled little 
picture representing, as I imagine, Captain Carmichael -Smyth 
on horseback. That gentleman was then just about to be mar- 
ried to my grandmother, and was to be the kindest of parents 
to my father and to all of us coming after. 

* I have the little card-table at which night after night Miss Becher sat 
down to play her game of whist with her neighbours. “ Miss Nancy,” as a little 
girl, used to be made to take her hand with the old ladies, and to the last 
she could make the cards fly through her fingers with most masterly precision. 


XVI 


THE NEWCOMES 


After drawing Captain Smyth, and the house in Calcutta, to 
show his friends on his first arrival, the little boy went on to 
sketch everything else that struck his fancy. 

We have a book, of which I have already spoken, compiled for 
private circulation by a member of our family, in which there is 
an account of my father as a child. “ His habit of observation be- 
gan very early,” says Mrs. Bayne. “ His mother told me that once 
when only three or four years old, and while sitting on her knee 
at the evening hour, she observed him gazing upward, and lost in 
admiration. ‘Ecco !’ he exclaimed, pointing to the evening star, 
which was shining like a diamond over the crescent moon. This 
struck her the more, as she had herself noticed the same beauti- 
ful combination on the night of his birth. ‘ Ecco ’ was probably 
decco, which is Hindustanee for ‘ look !’ I have often heard that 
when he first came to London and was driving through the city 
he called out, ‘ That is St. Paul’s !’ He had recognized it from a 
picture. He was with his father’s sister, Mrs. Ritchie, at the 
time, and she was alarmed by noticing that his uncle’s hat, which 
he had put on in play, quite fitted him. She took him to see 
Sir Charles Clarke, the great physician of the day, who examined 
him, and said, ‘ Don’t be afraid, he has a large head, but there 
is a great deal in it.’ ” 

The second of these very early letters is addressed to Mrs. 
Carmichael-Smyth, Agra. It is written in a painstaking, cop- 
per-plate hand, but it is so evidently under superintendence, 
that it is of much less interest than others. The little boy was 
then barely seven years old : — 


“April 24 , 1818 . 

“ My dear Mama, — I received your kind letter which Mrs. 

was so good as to read to me, as I am not able to read 

your letters yet, and hope I shall soon. I have been twice with 
George and Richmond to dine with Mr. Shakespear. He was very 
kind, and gave me a great many pretty books to read, and promised 
I should go every time George and Richmond went. I wrote a 
long letter in February, and sent it to Aunt Becher to send to you. 
I have learnt geography a long time, and have begun Latin and 
ciphering, which I like very much. Pray give my love to papa. 
— I remain, dear mama, your dutiful son, W. Thackeray.” 


INTRODUCTION 


xvn 


My father never spoke with any pleasure of his early school- 
His first school was in Hampshire, where his cousins, the 
Shakespears, were also pupils. “ I can remember George coming 
and flinging himself down on my bed the first night,” he wrote 
long after to the sister of George and Richmond Shakespear. . . . 

This was that place of which he writes in the “ Roundabout 
Papers,” “ A school of which our deluded parents had heard 
favourable reports, but which was governed by a horrible little 
tyrant, who made our young lives so miserable, that I remember 
kneeling by my little bed of a night and saying, ‘ Pray God, I 
may dream of my mother.’ ” 

He often suffered in health and in spirits. It was after one 
of these passing illnesses that he seems to have been sent to 
Fareham for change. 

“ My dearest of all mamas,” he writes, “ I have much pleasure 
in writing to you again from Fareham, to tell you how happy I 
am. I went to Roche Court to see Mr. and Mrs. Thresher. I 
saw a bird’s nest with young ones in it, and a beautiful honey- 
succle bush, and the Robbins in another place.” 

“ This has been Neptune day with me : I call it so, because I 
go into the water and am like Neptune. Your old acquaintances 
are very kind to me, and give me a great many cakes and a great 
many kisses. But I do not let Charles Becher kiss me ; I only 
take those from the ladies ; I don’t have many from grandmama. 

“ I should like you to have such another pretty house as Mrs. 
O’Brien’s, there is such a beautiful garden. I am grown a great 
boy ; I am three feet eleven inches high. I learn some poems, 
which you was very fond of, such as the ‘ Ode on Music.’ I 
shall go on Monday to Chiswick and hear the boys speak ; I in- 
tend to be one of those heroes in time. . . . 

“ I have lost my cough, and am quite well, strong, saucy, and 
hearty, and can eat grandmama’s gooseberry-pyes famously, after 
which I drink yours and my papa’s good health and speedy re- 
turn. — Believe me, my dear mama, your dutiful son, 

„ T „ “ W. Thackeray. 

“ Fareham, Hants, June 11.” 

But his troubles were nearly over. When his mother came 
home not very long after, he had no need to dream of her dear 
presence any more. 

8 


6 


xviii THE NEWCOMES 

Her account of that speechless, happy meeting has been given 
already. “He was not at Chatham when we arrived,” she writes 
to her sister in India, “but Mr. Langslow brought him from 
Chiswick the next morning. . . . He remembers you all perfect- 
ly. Aunt Maria, I think, is his favourite still. . . .” 

I never heard my father speak of his aunt, Maria Knox, who 
from her letters to my grandmother must have been a most 
charming and sensitive person ; but he used sometimes to de- 
scribe his own father to us. He remembered him as a very tall 
man, rising out of a bath. 

In August 1821 my grandmother, writing to India, to another 
sister, Mrs. Graham, says, “ My Billy-man is quite well. I must 
trespass and give him a day or two of holidays. You would 
laugh to hear what a grammarian he is. We were talking about 
odd characters ; some one was mentioned. Billy said, ‘ Un- 
doubtedly he is a Noun-Substantive.’ ‘ Why, my dear ?’ ‘ Be- 

cause he stands by himself.’ . . .” 

Not of his first school, but of Chiswick, where he went after- 
wards, my grandmother also writes : — 

“ I don’t think there could be a better school for young boys. 
My William is now sixth in the school, though out of the twenty- 
six there are only four that are not older than himself. He 
promises to fag hard till midsummer, that he may obtain a 
medal, and after that I think of placing him at the Charter- 
house. He tells me he has seen the Prince Regent’s yacht in 
Southampton Water, and the bed on which his Royal Highness 
breathes his royal snore." 

“ Our time is limited to the 19th, when I must be at Chiswick 
to hear my little hero hold forth. They have not selected an 
interesting speech — Hannibal’s Address to his Soldiers, which 
you must all read. . . . 

“ His drawing is wonderful,” the mother says in one of her 
letters. He liked to draw not so much the things he saw, as the 
things he thought about — knights with heraldic shields, soldiers, 
brigands, dragons, demons ; his schoolbooks were ornamented 
with funny, fanciful designs, his papers were covered with them. 
When he was still quite a little fellow he used to manufacture 
small postilions out of wafers, with the topboots in ink, and the 
red water-coats neatly stuck on. As he grew older he took to a 


INTRODUCTION 


xix 


flourishing style, sketching gentlemen with magnificent wreaths 
of hair and flaps to their coats, ladies with wonderful eyes and 
lips, in a curly and flourishing style. 

All his early history is certainly very like that of Clive New- 
come when he is first introduced to us at Grey Friars. 

My father went to Grey Friars in January 1822 ; little Clive 
must have been sent there about 1828 . It will be remembered 



RUNJHERT SINGH AND MAJOR TOOMBS. 
(Clive’s early drawings.) 


that Clive was six years younger than Arthur Pendennis, to whose 
good offices he was recommended by Mr. Charles Honeyman. 

I have already spoken of Charterhouse days in the chapter 
for “ Pendennis.” My father once took us there, and showed 
us the old haunts, and the house where he lived — Penny’s house, 
they called it — and the cloister, and the playground where he 


XX 


THE NEWCOMES 


fought and played. “Venables is coming to dine here on Tues- 
day — my old school-fellow, you know, who spoilt my profile,” he 
writes on one occasion. There were many things he liked to 
remember about Grey Friars, as well as those he wished to for- 
get. He certainly liked to go back and be young again with 
his old friends on Founder’s Day — with his old friends and his 
young friends too, who are now in their turn grave and reverend 
signors, rulers of the State, Members of Parliament. 



A PICKLE AND A ROD. 

It will be seen that my father sent most of his characters to 
Charterhouse — Pendennis and Clive and Philip all went there in 
turn. In my father’s time there was a master “called Dicken, 
or Dickens,” as he says in a schoolboy letter, and a friend has 
shown me a subsequent letter of his, addressed to Mr. Dicken, 
which describes a somewhat grim episode in the experience of 
poor little Rawdon Crawley, who was also a Carthusian. The 
letter is illustrated. There is a picture of the headmaster in his 
robes of office, as well as of the small culprit, and of the offici- 


INTRODUCTION 


xxi 


ating executioner; also an ominous-looking step is indicated. 
“ I forget how the block was made,” says my father in this 
postscript. 

That block was a very common sight in my father’s time. 
The boys used to be led up day after day, — and compare notes 
afterwards, he used to say. 

Was not Charterhouse school in Smithfield then ? Now that 
the school has left its ancient haunts, and transmigrated into a 
newer and more perfect incarnation, let us hope some of the old 
superstitions may have disappeared, together with associations 
which one cannot help regretting. 

There is a pretty story of my father’s own early Charterhouse 
days, which 1 have often heard him tell — of the small John 
Leech, coming first to school, and being put up upon a table in 
a little blue jacket and high buttoned trousers, and made to sing 
to the other boys, as they stood all round about. 

John Leech was only seven when he came to Charterhouse, 
and his poor mother, who felt it was wiser not to disturb him 
by visits, took a window in a house close by from which she 
could overlook the playground, and watch her little son at his 
games. 

A very faithful Carthusian, Canon Irvine, has written an in- 
teresting account in the Nineteenth Century of a visit my father 
paid to Charterhouse at the time he was finishing the “ New- 
comes.” Canon Irvine, the son of an old friend and connexion 
of our family, was one of the elder boys at Charterhouse then, 
and he describes how he met my father by appointment at the 
door leading into Gown - boys Quad. My father asked him 
whether he knew any of the “ Codds,” and whether he could 
take him to see one of them ; and then told him that Colonel 
Newcome was going to be a “ Codd.” 

“ I knew Captain Light,” writes the Canon, “ an old officer of 
fine profile and a ‘ gran’ frosty pow,’ who had served her Majesty 
and her royal predecessors in an infantry regiment, and had lost 
his sight from the glare of the rock at Gibraltar. Blindness had 
brought him to seek the shelter of Thomas Sutton’s Hospital, 
where he lived with the respect of old and young, tended loving- 
ly through all the hours of daylight by his daughter, who went 
back at night to some neighbouring lodging. To the quarters of 


XXII 


THE NEWCOMES 


this good old gentleman I led Thackeray. ... He sat down and 
conversed very pleasantly, ever and anon relapsing into reverie, 
where the Colonel and Ethel, we may be sure, took their places, 
and then he would rouse himself to talk courteously again. . . 

The ancient “ Codds ” remain unmolested, although there was 
once some scheme for bringing a street through the grounds of 
Charterhouse. May the remembrance of Thomas Newcome 
long divert the cruel experiment. 


Part II. 

The “ Newcomes ” was written in the years that came between 
my father’s first and second journey to America. He began the 
preface at Baden on the 7th of July 1853, he finished his book 
at Paris on the 28th of June 1855, and in the autumn of that 
year he returned to America. The story had been in his mind 
for a long time. While still writing “ Esmond ” he speaks of a 
new novel “ opening with something like Fareham and the old 
people there,” and of “ a hero who will be born in India, and 
have a half-brother and sister.” And there is also the descrip- 
tion to be read of the little wood near to Berne, in Switzerland, 
into which he strayed one day, and where, as he tells us, “ the 
story was actually revealed to him.” 

Some moments have their special characteristics, and I can 
still remember that day, and the look of the fields in which we 
were walking, and the silence of the hour, and the faint, sultry 
summer mountains, with the open wood at the foot of the slop- 
ing stubble. My father had been silent and preoccupied when 
we first started, and was walking thoughtfully apart. We wait- 
ed till he came back to us, saying he now saw his way quite 
clearly, and he was cheerful and in good spirits as we returned 
to the inn. I have a note-book of his for 1853, in which there 
are some memoranda of that time. We were travelling in 
Switzerland and Germany. We had come to Baden first of all, 
where he records various excursions and drives, and notes the 
books which he is reading, as well as the people he meets : — 

“ 1th July 1853. — Began preface of ‘ Newcomes.’ ” 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

u Wrote introduction ‘ N.’ — Walk to old Scldoss with the chil- 
dren. Read ‘ Don Quixote.’ ” 


AM RHEIN. — I. 



“1 1th . — Wrote Chap. 1. Read ‘ Don Quixote.’ ‘Tacitus’ 
at night. . . .” 


XXVI 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Saturday . — To Berne. Tried to write 3.” 

“ 8th August . — Sketching all the morning.” 

“1 5th August. — Pension Baumgarten, Thun,” he notes. 
“ Wrote ten pages, and finished No. 3.” 

Then travelling by “ Lucerne and a miraculous moonrise,” he 
comes to Zurich, where he begins No. 4, and then by Basle and 



A BENCH IN SWITZERLAND. 


Heidelberg, writing in the railway, he reaches Frankfort. He 
must have been working too hard, for he was seized at Frank- 
fort with an attack of illness which lasted some days. By Sep- 
tember we were home again in London. 

There are still a few more memoranda in the little book ; 
such as a visit to Blenheim with Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, with 
whom we went to stay soon after our return from abroad. 

It is in this same autumn of 1853 that my father writes to 
his mother : “ I only got last night the proof-sheets of No. 1 of 
the ‘Newcomes’ ; Doyle has been three weeks doing the en- 
gravings. . . . This morning comes a letter, which may defer 
the Roman trip altogether — a proposal from a publisher to edit 
Horace Walpole’s letters, which is just the sort of work I should 


INTRODUCTION 


XXVll 


like ; such as would keep me at home pleasantly employed some 
evenings, and pottering over old volumes (I am flying from pen 
to pen to see which will answer best) of old biographies and his- 
tories. When the imagination work is over that is the kind of 
occupation I often propose to myself for my old age. . . . 

“We had a pleasant little journey to Oxfordshire — did the 
children tell you ? — and as for Brighton, it is wonderful how 
it seems to answer with me. I found myself longing to get to 



BERNE. 

work, and wrote a ballad there the day before yesterday with 
quite a juvenile pluck.” This ballad was the “ Organ Boy’s La- 
ment,” the last poem he ever published in Punch. 

The late autumn was spent at Paris in an apartment in the 
Champs Elysees, where the fifth number of the “ Newcomes ” 
was finished, and whence, on the 27th of November, we started, 
my father, my sister and I, for Italy, by Chalons, by Lyons, by 
Avignon to Marseilles, where we went on board the Valetta , 
skirting along the coast, and reaching Rome on the 3rd of De- 
cember 1853. 


xxviii THE NEWCOMES 

The “ Newcomes,” it will be seen, led a wandering life ever 
since that day in the little wood at Berne, where my father first 
marshalled the various impressions which had come to him from 
time to time. At home in London, in Paris sunshine, through 
the Roman winter (which was trying in many ways), the work 
kept steadily on. I can remember writing constantly to his dic- 
tation all this year, though the details only come to me in a con- 
fused sort of way. On one occasion he was at work in some 



MAL DE MER — BLOWING A LITTLE FRESH. 


room in which he slept, high up in a hotel ; the windows looked 
out upon a wide and pleasant prospect, but I cannot put a name 
to ray remembrance ; and then he walked up and down, he paused 
and then he paced the room again, stopping at last at the foot 
of the bed, where he stood rolling his hand over the brass ball at 
the end of the bedstead. He was at the moment dictating that 
scene in which poor Jack Belsize pours out his story to Clive 
and J. J. at Baden. “ Yes,” my father said, with a sort of laugh, 
looking down at his own hand (he was very much excited at the 
moment), “ this is just the sort of thing a man might do at such 
a time.” It was in this same room, in this hotel in past-land, that 
he christened his heroine, still walking up and down the room, 
and making up his mind what her name should be. I wonder 


INTRODUCTION 


xxix 

how many thousands of Ethels were christened by him, and how 
many have Miss Yonge for a godmother ! He used, as I have 
said, to dictate very constantly, but when he came to a critical 
point he would send his secretary away and write for himself. He 
always said he could think best with a pen in his hand. A pen to 
an author is like the wand of a necromancer, it compels the spell. 



Our stay in Rome was not unmixed pleasure, though it was 
full of delightful sights and people and remembrances, which, 
as my father predicted, lasted a life-time. 

There too I remember writing for him on a marble table in a 
great room with many windows, and with walls hung with pict- 
ures and ornamented with swinging lamps and classic columns, 
where pigeons perched on the deep window-sills, voices called, 


XXX 


THE NEWCOMES 


and pifferari droned from the street far below, and charming 
people came to call and to interrupt us — brides and bride- 
grooms, beautiful ladies, poets, muses, paiuters with beards and 
cloaks. 

That was the time when my father went for a walk on the 
Pincio with Mr. Doyle’s friend, Mr. Pollen, and three or four 
monks and priests in their robes. He admired the convents, but 
he never ceased wondering at the creed for which they gave up 
everything. 


W. M. T. to Mrs. Carmichael-Smyth. 

“Rome, December 1853. 

“This shall serve as an envelope to the girl’s letter, which I 
see is full of raptures and pleasure ; and that is something worth 
travelling for. We went to St. Peter’s yesterday, and agreed Pisa 
is the best ; the other is a huge heathen parade, all the statues 
represent lies almost ; and the Founder of the religion utterly dis- 
appears under the enormous pile of fiction and ceremony that 
has been built round Him. Pm not quite sure that I think St. 
Peter’s handsome : yes, as handsome as one of those women I 
saw at the ball at Paris. The front is positively ugly, that’s cer- 
tain ; but nevertheless, the city is glorious. I had a famous walk on 
the Pincio, and the sun set for us with a splendour quite imperial. 

“ I wasn’t sorry when the journey from Civita Vecchia was 
over. Having eighty or ninety louis in my pocket, I should 
have been good meat for the brigands had they chosen to come. 
Everybody I have met is more or less a thief or a beggar. Ev- 
ery miserable official at every post-house, customs, what not, 
holds out his swindling hand and begs ; and the earth swarms 
with myriads of priests and friars, who neither toil nor spin, but 
live on the people, and perform fetish, and interpret the will of 
the gods. Quarn diu ? I wonder when it will be over ? And I 
wonder when my daughters are coming to breakfast ? 

“ Breakfast, writing, go to the club and read newspapers, 
walks with the girls, dinner at home or out three times a week, 
sometimes a tea-party, always early to bed, and a something in 
the air (or in the mind, is it ?) which causes a perpetual languor. 
A man who has been a-pleasuring for twenty years begins to 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXI 


settle down as a sort of domestic character — not gloomy nor ill- 
tempered, nor peevish nor unkind, but a sort of mild melancholy. 
There are only about six pictures and statues of all I have seen 
here that I care to see again. Ah ! where are the joyful eyes 
and bright perceptions of youth ? The girls have many kind 
friends — Mrs. Sartoris, Mrs. Browning. I wish I was not think- 
ing of No. 8 the minute No. 7 is done. But so is the condition 
of man, I suppose, until the end comes, and peace. If I have a 
blue devil, he is of such a faint blue, that you can hardly see it; 
and when I look him steadily in the face, he presently vanishes, 
and I feel that I am very fairly happy. Who can say more, or 
how many as much ? I have made acquaintance with a convert, 
an Oxford man, whom I like, and who interests me. And I am 
trying to pick my Oxford man’s brains, and see from his point 
of view. But it isn’t mine ; and old popery and old paganism 
seem to me as dead the one as the other. 

“ I don’t seem to care much more about the ‘ Newcomes’ than 
about other sublunary things. I never hear except your verdict, 
and perhaps that’s the very best way, to write it and leave it. 
As for posterity, be sure that will have its own authors to read, 
and I know one who has very little anxiety about its verdict. I 
have broken my ruby pen, which wouldn’t write upright, and 
finish my scrap with the gold one that won’t write slanting.” 

W. M. T. to Mrs. Procter. 

“ Via della Croce 81 , Rome, 

“ January 1854 . 

“You are quite right that I might have done my work just as 
well at Brompton as at Rome. I haven’t seen Rome, and don’t 
know a single Roman except the housemaid and my landlord, 
who speaks English. 

“ But the girls are as happy as young women need be. If I 
am glum myself, their good spirits give me pleasure; and if I 
can’t leave them a fortune, why, we must try and leave them the 
memory of having had a good time. ... I go and look at the 
pictures, statues, churches, and so forth, but what has come to 
them or the eyes that behold them ? I declare that a Dying 
Gladiator is very well, but it is no such wonder. As for the 


XXX11 


THE NEWCOMES 


Domenichino (it is at the Capitol you know, over the way), 
pish ! it is a great clumsy woman, affected, ogling, and in a 
great turban. The best thing at Rome is the sunset over St. 
Peter’s every evening. Gods, what a flaming splendour it is ! 
The worst thing, that one can’t drink wine as in Weymouth 
Street — not though it’s ever so good, which it isn’t. No wine 
is so good as Weymouth Street wine. 

“Yours and my mother’s have been the only criticisms that 
have come to me. Pollen says Newman read the two first num- 
bers, and thought the style the right sort of thing. The Colonel 
is going to India the day after to-morrow. You’ll be glad to 
hear that, I know. He is a dear old boy, but confess you think 
he is rather a twaddler. . . . 

“ The most interesting man I have met here is a convert, Mr. 
Pollen, whom Doyle sent with a letter, and we have neutral grounds 
on the fine arts, books, and so forth, and I try to understand 
from him what can be the secret of the religion for which he 
has given up rank, chances, and all good things of this life. . . . 

“ I am glad to have seen him and other converts, and to have 
been touched by their goodness, piety, and self-negation. Tell 
Adelaide, with my respectful remembrance, that on Candlemas 
Day I met at breakfast the Abbot of St. Bernard’s (England) 
and Father Ignatius in white Cistercian habits, Dr. Manning — 
he has just been doctored by his Holiness — Messrs. Vaughan 
and Wynn in minor orders, with hats like Don Basilio. And 
yesterday I met the Holy Father in the street, and had a most 
comfortable bow from him.” 

February 4. 

“ It is a shame how long this letter has been in completion. 

“ I lost it, and find it only in the midst of a heap of No. 8 
which has been completed, thank the stars, and now since seven 
o’clock this morning am at work on No. 9. Seven o’clock in the 
morning. That is your true secret. Early to bed, have the day 
to myself from twelve o’clock till eleven at night, and then go 
to sleep. But with this regimen the author may flourish, but 
the friend perishes, the writing of letters becomes impossible, and 
the sight of ink odious. . . . We have had a dear little frost, 
and my health has braced up wonderfully with the cold weather. 
Lord ! how the stars shine in the * evans,’ those luminous ob- 


INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

jects said to be worlds by some. I don’t think you see them in 
London. You only see coals and gas, and fogs, and mud and 
snow — but then Madeira and that bottle of Crockford which 
B. C. will bring out, and a snug talk by the fire !” 

It will be seen from these letters that he was tired and out of 
spirits. He fell ill after a time with an attack of Roman fever, 
and when he recovered was already beginning to make ready for 
leaving Rome, when he heard of his aunt, Mrs. Ritchie’s death. 
He was very much moved, and he told us to pack up quickly 
and hurry our departure by two or three days. To her daugh- 
ter he writes — 

W. M. T. to Miss Charlotte Ritchie. 

“ Who could be of help in this grief ? God forbid you should 
not feel it, and I sympathise in it, who recollect my dearest 
aunts’ sweet face when I came to her as a child from India. For 
six and thirty years up to yesterday, almost always sweet and 
kind and tender. O the pure living heart, does it not make 
yours thrill with thanks and devout gratitude to God our Fa- 
ther, to think that hers was so guileless, so gentle, so full of 
dear kindness to all human creatures, as well as to her children 
and to me, who was almost one of them ? As we love and bless 
them when they are gone, may we hope that their love too en- 
dures for us in that awful future into which the Divine Good- 
ness has called them. Can’t you imagine the reunion with 
those she continued to love after their departure with such a 
beautiful fidelity — the beloved father, husband, children? 

“ Now I shall go up and see the sun set for the last time over 
St. Peter’s. Shall I ever see it again I wonder ? — the grand old 
usurper, who trampled the pagan tyrant down, and has had his 
own reign of nigh 1500 years, barbarous and bloody and splen- 
did. Who is to follow ? . . . 

“ So the generations of men pass away and are called rank 
after rank by the Divine Goodness out of the reach of time and 
age, and grief and struggle and parting, leaving these to their 
successors, who go through their appointed world-work, and are 
resumed presently by the Awful Power of us all, Whose will is 
8 c 


XXXIV 


THE NEWCOMES 


done on earth as it is in heaven, and Whose kingdom and glory 
are for ever and ever.” 

We left Rome very early one morning and drove all day 
through the Campagna on our way to Naples. We slept at 
Terracina, and started before sunrise next morning. How well 
I can remember the first flaming rays flooding the shadowy 
plains as we came out of the hotel in the early morning, and the 
cigar my father lit as we drove away ! 

W. M. T. to his Mother. 

“ It is a most strange thing, that our fambly is not to be ex- 
empted from the evils which befall other and more wulgar fam- 
ilies, so this is to tell you that we have been wiling away the gay 
hours for the past week with a little scarlatina. . . . Luckily we 
had had a fortnight’s hard work before these attacks, during 
which two numbers were polished off. I had a week of illness 
myself, the old complaint brought on without rhyme or reason 
by the beautiful air of this country. ... It is certain that I 
might have stayed at home for any good to the ‘ Newcomes ’ 
which this journey has done. What jolly rooms we have ! 
Capri out of window looks like an amethyst island. The weath- 
er for a month has been bitterly cold, but is now turning, I think. 
The people here are as kind as the people everywhere.” 

Writing still of this time he says, “ And I now understand 
the anxiety of some parents, whose careful faces when I was ill 
myself used to make me wonder. So the Father of all sends ill- 
ness, death, care, grief, out of which come love, steadfastness, 
consolation, nor could these things have been if men had not 
been made mortal, and even erring and sinful and wayward. 
Suppose Eve had not eaten of that apple, and her children and 
their papa had gone on living for ever quite happy in a smirking 
paradisical nudity, it wouldn’t have been half the world it is.” 

After our return journey, my sister and I remained in Paris 
with our grandparents, and my father went over to England im- 
mediately. He had just given up the old house in Young Street 
and was moving into Onslow Square, which was in Brompton in 
those days and not yet in South Kensington. 

“ I have been to see the Brompton House,” he writes in April 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXV 


1854, “and am well pleased with the purchase, and am poking 
about for furniture, and leave home at eleven every day and 
don’t come back till midnight. I had a famous passage and a 
good dinner and sleep at Folkestone, dined at the Shakespeare 
dinner here on Saturday, and am very glad I came, if only that 
Dickens, who was in the chair, made a complimentary speech, 
and though I don’t care for the compliments, I do for the good- 
will and peace among men. 

“ I have been to call on no one, but dining with old cronies, 
companions, bachelors. I wonder whether l shall see you in 
Paris in a few days after all ? 

“ But do another ‘ Newcomes,’ sir, or two if you can, before 
you take thought of pleasuring. That truth looks me steadily 
in the face, and how can I bolt from it ? 

“ I don’t know when I am to get Brompton ready. I have 
bought at a sale a lot of goods, and still want ever so much 
more, being desirous to have good handsome things this time, 
and the old traps looking very decrepit in the new house.” 

The result of my father’s furnishings was a pleasant, bowery 
sort of home, with green curtains and carpets, looking out upon 
the elm-trees of Onslow Square. We lived for seven years at 
No. 36, and it was there he wrote the “ Lectures on the Georges,” 
and the end of “ The Newcomes,” and the “ Virginians,” part 
of “ Philip,” and many of the “ Roundabout Papers.” His 
study was over the drawing-room and looked out upon the elm 
trees. 

In 1854 my father went North, to give the lecture on “ Charity 
and Humour,” which he kept specially for charities. He had 
written the lecture in one day in America — dictating it to Mr. 
Crowe. 

A young lady, not then married, the friend of Mr. and Mrs. 
Bray, who were George Eliot’s friends, has left the following in- 
teresting description of my father at this time : — 

“ Thackeray came to Coventry to give us his lecture on the 
* English Humourists.’ He was the Brays’ guest and, would you 
believe it, they asked me, and me only, to tea, to be smuggled 
in as one of themselves with no introduction. . . . He usually 
goes to an inn, hating to be made a lion of, but the Lewes’ as- 
sured him that the Brays would not lionise him, and so he ac- 


XXXVI 


THE NEWCOMES 


cepted the invitation. ... I met Miss Hennell in the garden, 
who talked in an undertone, as if fearful of disturbing the lion 
who was then in his room writing the coming number of ‘The 
Newcomes ’ and then went into the house anxiously awaiting his 
appearance ; Mr. Bray, Mrs. Bray, Sarah Hennell, Mrs. Head 
and myself, all intensely excited. 

“ At last he came, very quietly, but such a presence ! W e 
had to look up a long way, he was so tall. . . . He talked in a 
pleasant friendly way. The coming number of ‘ The Newcomes ’ 
of course, was in all our minds. Miss Hennell, as our spoke- 
woman said, ‘ Mr. Thackeray, we want you to let Clive marry 
Ethel. Do let them be happy.’ He was surprised at our in- 
terest in his characters. ‘ What a fuss you make about my 
yellow books here in the country ! In town no one cares for 
them. They haven’t the time. The characters once created 
lead me, and I follow where they direct. I cannot tell the 
events that wait on Ethel and Clive.’ The high world was full 
of Ethels who sold themselves voluntarily. ‘I was talking,’ he 
said, ‘ to a very nice girl at a party in London, when I saw her 
start as a gentleman — an artist — entered the room. “ Oh, that’s 
it,” I said, “ is it ?” She coloured and said, “ What is the use ? 
He hasn’t a farthing,” and walked away. They were following 
each other about, evidently in love, but in three weeks or so, it 
was announced that a marriage had been arranged between this 
young lady and some Lord Farintosh. . . .’ 

“He told Miss Hennell that he did not like ‘ dearest Laura’ 
and that he made his women without character, or else so bad, 
because that was as he knew them. I was told that next morn- 
ing, when they asked him whether he had had a good night, he 
answered, ‘ How could I with Colonel Newcome making a fool 
of himself as he has done ?’ 

“ Mrs. Bray : ‘ But why did you let him ?’ 

“ Thackeray : ‘ Oh, it was in him to do it. He must.’ 

“ They talked of orthodoxy, and whether there was any tal- 
ented person on the orthodox side. He said he was going to 

spend the next day with of Birmingham. ‘ A good fellow 

— 0 Heavens, if I could write three lines of that man’s ortho- 
doxy I could make £20,000, but I couldn’t do it.’ The conver- 
sation then turned upon personal piety, and Thackeray gave us 


INTRODUCTION 


xxxvn 


his own beautifully simple faith — in conclusion saying, half in 
way of apology for his old-fashioned belief (for the Brays were 
of very different ways of thinking, as he was aware), ‘ But I 
have a dear old Gospel mother who is a good Christian, and who 
has always chapter and verse to prove everything. Poor dear !’ 

“Talked of Newman. Called him a saint, in a way that was 
a blessing to hear, so heartily and truly did he utter it. Said 
that somewhere in his heart he (Newman) was a sceptic, but 
that he had shut it down and locked it up as with Solomon’s 
Seal, and went on really believing in the Catholic faith. 

“The Lecture was given in our beautiful old Hall (scene of 
the Trial in ‘ Adam Bede ’), which we found so well filled that 
we had to take side seats. It was quietly and well delivered — 
no action — read as a book. He gave a slight sketch of the early 
Humourists, but when he came to Dickens, he spoke with affec- 
tionate enthusiasm, saying, ‘ I have a little maid at home who is 
never happy without one of his books beneath her pillow.’ His 
benediction on Dickens became almost a thanksgiving so devout 
was it. He also read from Punch an extract from ‘ The Curate’s 
Walk ’ so touching and humourous that it alone would almost 
prove the principle that true ‘ humour is always charitable.’ He 
had written it himself as he told us very simply.” 

It is almost touching to realise how many people have found 
the original of Colonel Newcome, to their personal satisfaction, 
in various individuals. I could almost laugh sometimes when 
one old friend after another says, “ Have you never thought 
that So-and-so may have suggested the original character, that 

your father must have meant to describe ” I never heard 

my father say that when he wrote Colonel Newcome, any special 
person was in his mind, but it was always an understood thing 
that my step-grandfather had many of Colonel Newcome’s char- 
acteristics, and there was also a brother of the Major’s, General 
Charles Carmichael, who was very like Colonel Newcome in 
looks; a third family Colonel Newcome was Sir Richmond 
Shakespear, and how many more are there not, present, and yet 
to come ? According to a friendly biographer of the Thackeray 
family, they abound in India ! It was of one of these officers 
in later years that my father wrote : — 


XXXV111 


THE NEWCOMES 


“I was shocked, not surprised, to find the other day that 
Colonel Newcome of House had been speculating unluck- 

ily, that his Gutta Percha Company had swallowed a thousand up, 
and is calling out for a thousand more. He wrote to me, desiring 
me to buy all his wine — £100 worth, that is. I wanted him to 
take the money without sending me the wine, but this he utterly 
refused, declining to have anything but a bargain between us.” 

I remember writing the last chapters of “ The Newcomes ” to 
my father’s dictation. I wrote on as he dictated more and 
more slowly until he stopped short altogether, in the account of 
Colonel Newcome’s last illness, when he said that he must now 
take the pen into his own hand, and he sent me away. 

The very last page of “ The Newcomes” was written not in the 
study in Onslow Square, but at Paris on the 20th of June 1855. 

That line “ ” which he draws with his own pen, 

“the barrier” across which he can see the figures retreating, 
was drawn one hot summer’s day in the Rue Godot de Mauroy, 
in a big shady room looking towards the old street. His cousins, 
Charlotte and Jane Ritchie, had lent us their apartment for a 
few days, together with their housekeeper to look after us, and 
to prepare such chickens and fillets as she only knew how to 
evoke out of poultry and beef. 

The manuscript of the “ Newcomes” is now at Charterhouse, 
in the museum, and wishing to verify my own impressions, I 
wrote to a friend there, asking him whereabouts my father’s 
handwriting came in, in the last chapter. He answered, that 
he had been to look at the manuscript, and that my writing left 
off, as I imagined, with the account of the illness in chapter 
fifty-two. My father then continued with his own hand, and 
it was with his cousin Charlotte’s pen and on her writing-table, 
that he completed his work. 

It is well known how “ The Newcomes ” was received and 
welcomed, and yet, looking over old reviews and notices, it 
would seem that authors were more smartly lectured twenty 
years ago than they are now. 

“ There has been a loud cry raised,” says the North British 
Review , taking up the gauntlet for my father, “ and in the name 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXIX 


of religion too, that this writer represents men and women worse 
than they are. But why do we go on calling ourselves miserable 
sinners on Sunday, if we are to abuse Mr. Thackeray on week-days 
for making out many of us to be somewhat less than saints?” 

Sir Edward Burne Jones, who was still an undergraduate at 
Oxford in 1856, wrote an essay on the “ Newcomes ” for the first 
number of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. The view that 
“Thackeray was great because he depicted poor human nature 
as it is, because he studied from life and reproduced life, and was 
both sorry for it, and proud for it,” became, we are told, a credo 
of the school of young artists to which Burne Jones belonged. 

Northern reviewers were generally favourable to him. “ Thack- 
eray’s peculiar style,” says this one, “ reaches perfection in the 
‘ Newcomes,’ and to appreciate it properly, the degrees through 
which this writer has passed should be examined.” He then 
proceeds to compare my father to Fielding, “ whose breadth of 
treatment, impossible for the modern novelist, is represented in 
Mr. Thackeray’s works by a subtlety of handling which is al- 
most equally admirable.” 

My father took his writing as seriously as any reviewer could 
do. He looked upon himself as a lay preacher even more than as 
a maker of stories. A letter written long before (I think to Mr. 
Sortain, the Brighton clergyman) puts all this very clearly : — 

“13 Young Street, Kensington, 

“ May 15, 1850. 

“ My dear Sir, — I shall value your book very much, not only 
as the work of the most accomplished orator I ever heard in my 
life, but if you will let me so take it, as a token of goodwill and 
interest on your part in my own literary pursuits. 

“ I want, too, to say in my way, that love and truth are the 
greatest of Heaven’s commandments and blessings to us ; that the 
best of us, the many especially who pride themselves on their 
virtue most, are wretchedly weak, vain, and selfish ; and at least 
to preach such a charity, as a common sense of our shame and 
unworthiness might inspire to us poor people. 

“ I hope men of my profession do no harm who talk this doc- 
trine out of doors to people in drawing-rooms and in the world. 
Your duty in church takes you a step higher, — that awful step 


xl 


THE NEWCOMES 


beyond ethics, which leads you up to God’s revealed truth. What 
a tremendous responsibility his is who has that mystery to ex- 
plain ! What a prodigious boon the faith which makes it clear 
to him ! I am glad to think that I have kind thoughts from 
you, and to have the opportunity of offering you my sincere re- 
spect and regard. — Believe me, most truly yours, my dear sir, 

“ W. M. Thackeray.” 


THE NEWCOMES 


CHAPTER I 


THE OVERTURE— AFTER WHICH THE CURTAIN RISES UPON 
A DRINKING CHORUS 

CROW, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy 



window, sat perched on a tree looking down at a great 


* big frog in a pool underneath him. The frog’s hideous 

large eyes were goggling out of his head in a manner which 
appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who watched 
the splay-footed slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humour 
belonging to crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; 
whilst a few lambs frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass 
and buttercups there. 

Who should come in to the farther end of the field but a wolf? 
He was so cunningly dressed up in sheep’s clothing that the very 
lambs did not know Master Wolf; nay, one of them, whose dam the 
wolf had just eaten, after which he had thrown her skin over his 
shoulders, ran up innocently towards the devouring monster, mis- 
taking him for her mamma. 

“ He he ! ” says a fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling, over 
which the tree grew, whereupon the crow was perched looking 
down on the frog, who was staring with his goggle eyes fit to burst 
with envy, and croaking abuse at the ox. “How absurd those 
lambs are ! Yonder silly little knock-knee’d baah-ling does not 
know the old wolf dressed in the sheep’s fleece. He is the same 
old rogue who gobbled up little Red Riding-Hood’s grandmother 
for lunch, and swallowed little Red Riding-Hood for supper. Tirez 
la bobinette et la chevillette cherra. He he ! ” 

An owl that was hidden in the hollow of the tree woke up. 
“ Oho, Master Fox,” says she, “ I cannot see you, but I smell you ! 
If some folks like lambs, other folks like geese,” says the owl. 

“ And your ladyship is fond of mice,” says the fox. 

8 


A 


2 THE NEWCOMES j 

“The Chinese eat them,” says the owl; “and I have read 
that they are very fond of dogs,” continued the old lady. 

“I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the 
face of the earth,” said the fox. 

“And I have also read, in works of travel, that the French 
eat frogs,” continued the owl. “ Aha, my friend Crapaud ! are 
you there ? That was a very pretty concert we sang together last 
night ! ” 

“If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef/ 
croaked out the frog, — “ great big, brutal, bellowing oxen.” 

“Ho, whoo ! ” says the owl, “ I have heard that the English 
are toad-eaters too ! ” 

“ But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madam 1 ” 
says Reynard ; “or their sitting down and taking a crow to pick ” 
adds the polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow who was perched 
above them with the cheese in his mouth. “We are privileged ' 
animals, all of us ; at least we never furnish dishes for the odious 
orgies of man.” 

“I am the bird of wisdom,” says the owl ; “I was the com- 
panion of Pallas Minerva; I am frequently represented in the 
Egyptian monuments.” 

“I have seen you over the British barn-doors,” said the fox, 
with a grin. “You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know 
a thing or two myself ; but am, I confess it, no scholar — a mere 
man of the world — a fellow that lives by his wits — a mere country 
gentleman.” 

“You sneer at scholarship,” continues the owl, with a sneer 
on her venerable face. “ I read a good deal of a night.” 

“ When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost,” 
says the fox. 

“ It’s a pity for all that you can’t read ; that board nailed over 
my head would give you some information.” 

“ What does it say % ” says the fox. 

“ I can’t spell in the daylight,” answered the owl ; and, giving 
a yawn, went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree. 

“ A fig for her hieroglyphics ! ” said the fox, looking up at the 
crow in the tree. “ What airs our slow neighbour gives herself ! 

She pretends to all the wisdom ; whereas your reverences the 
crows are endowed with gifts far superior to those benighted old 
bigwigs of owls, who blink in the darkness, and call their hooting 
singing. How noble it is to hear a chorus of crows ! There are 
twenty-four brethren of the Order of St. Corvinus, who have 
builded themselves a convent near a wood which I frequent ; what 
a droning and a chanting they keep up ! I protest their reverences’ 


THE NEWCOMES 


3 


singing is nothing to yours ! You sing so deliciously in parts, do 
for the love of harmony favour me with a solo ! ” 

While this conversation was going on, the ox was chum ping the 
grass ; the frog was eyeing him in such a rage at his superior pro- 
portions, that he would have spurted venom at him if he could, 
and that he would have burst, only that is impossible, from sheer 
envy ; the little lambkin was lying unsuspiciously at the side of 
the wolf in fleecy hosiery, who did not as yet molest her, being 
replenished with the mutton her mamma. But now the wolf’s 
eyes began' to glare, and his sharp white teeth to show, and he rose 
up with a growl, and began to think he should like lamb for supper. 

“ What large eyes you have got ! ” bleated out the lamb, with 
rather a timid look. 

“ The better to see you with, my dear.” 

“ What large teeth you have got ! ” 

“ The better to ” 

At this moment such a terrific yell filled the field, that all its 
inhabitants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had 
somehow got a lion’s skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued 
by some men and boys with sticks and guns. 

When the wolf in sheep’s clothing heard the bellow of the ass 
in the lion’s skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, 
he ran away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the 
ox heard the noise he dashed round the meadow-ditch, and with 
one trample of his hoof squashed the frog who had been abusing 
him. When the crow saw the people with guns coming, he in- 
stantly dropped the cheese out of his mouth, and took to wing. 
When the fox saw the cheese drop, he immediately made a jump 
at it (for he knew the donkey’s voice, and that his asinine bray 
was not a bit like his royal master’s roar), and making for the 
cheese, fell into a steel trap, which snapped off his tail; without 
which he was obliged to go into the world, pretending, forsooth, 
that it was the fashion not to wear tails any more ; and that the 
fox-party were better without ’em. 

Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up, and belaboured Master 
Donkey until he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the 
sheep’s clothing draggling about his legs, could not run fast, and 
was detected and shot by one of the men. The blind old owl, 
whirring out of the hollow tree, quite amazed at the disturbance, 
flounced into the face of a ploughboy, who knocked her down with 
a pitchfork. The butcher came and quietly led off the ox and the 
lamb; and the farmer finding the fox’s brush in the trap, hung 
it up over his mantelpiece, and always bragged that he had been 
in at his death. 


4 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ What a farrago of old fables is this ! What a dressing up 
in old clothes ! ” says the critic. (I think I see such a one — a 
Solomon that sits in judgment over us authors and chops up our 
children.) “As sure as I am just and wise, modest, learned, and 
religious, so surely I have read something very like this stuff and 
nonsense, about jackasses and foxes, before. That wolf in sheep’s 
clothing? — do I not know him? That fox discoursing with the 
crow ? — have I not previously heard of him ? Yes, in Lafontaine’s 
fables : let us get the Dictionary and the Fable and the ‘ Biographie 
Universelle,’ article Lafontaine, and confound the impostor.” 

“ Then in what a contemptuous way,” may Solomon go on to 
remark, “ does this author speak of human nature ! There is scarce 
one of these characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a 
flatterer ; the frog is an emblem of impotence and envy ; the wolf 
in sheep’s clothing, a bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of 
innocence; the ass in the lion’s skin, a quack trying to terrify, 
by assuming the appearance of a forest monarch (does the writer, 
writhing under merited castigation, mean to sneer at critics in this 
character? We laugh at the impertinent comparison); the ox, a 
stupid commonplace ; the only innocent being in the writer’s 
(stolen) apologue is a fool — the idiotic lamb, who does not know 
his own mother ! ” And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may 
indulge in some fine writing regarding the holy beauteousness of 
maternal affection 

Why not ? If authors sneer, it is the critic’s business to sneer 
at them for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or 
who would care about his opinion ? And his livelihood is to find 
fault. Besides, he is right sometimes; and the stories he reads, 
and the characters drawn in them, are old sure enough. What 
stories are new? All types of all characters march through all 
fables : tremblers and boasters ; victims and bullies ; dupes and 
knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves leonine airs; Tar- 
tuffes wearing virtuous clothing ; lovers and their trials, their 
blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of 
the human story do not love, and lies too, begin? So the tales 
were told ages before iEsop ; and asses under lions’ manes roared 
in Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in 
sheep’s clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit, no doubt. The 
sun shines to-day as he did when he first began shining ; and the 
birds in the tree overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the 
same note they have sung ever since there were finches. Nay, since 
last he besought good-natured friends to listen once a month to his 
talking, a friend of the writer has seen the New World, and found 
the (featherless) birds there exceedingly like their brethren of 


THE NEWCOMES 


5 


Europe. There may be nothing new under and including the sun ; 
but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope, 
scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes and quiet. 
And then will wake Morrow and the eyes that look on it ; and so 
da capo. 

This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jack- 
daws will wear peacocks’ feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of 
the peacocks ; in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks 
themselves, the splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of 
their dazzling necks, and the magnificence of their tails, exception 
will yet be taken to the absurdity of their rickety strut, and the 
foolish discord of their pert squeaking ; in which lions in love will 
have their claws pared by sly virgins ; in which rogues will some- 
times triumph, and honest folks, let us hope, come by their own ; 
in which there will be black crape and white favours ; in which 
there will be tears under orange-flower wreaths, and jokes in mourn- 
ing coaches ; in which there will be dinners of herbs with content- 
ment and without, and banquets of stalled oxen where there is care 
and hatred — ay, and kindness and friendship too, along with the 
feast. It does not follow that all men are honest because they are 
poor; and I have known some who were friendly and generous, 
although they had plenty of money. There are some great land- 
lords who do not grind down their tenants ; there are actually 
bishops who are not hypocrites ; there are liberal men even among 
the Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are not all Aristocrats at 
heart. But who ever heard of giving the Moral before the Fable 1 
Children are only led to accept the one after their delectation over 
the other: let us take care lest our readers skip both; and so let 
us bring them on quickly — our wolves and lambs, our foxes and 
lions, our roaring donkeys, our billing ringdoves, our motherly 
partlets, and crowing chanticleers. 

There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter 
than it appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century ; 
when the zest of life was certainly keener; when tavern wines 
seemed to be delicious, and tavern dinners the perfection of cookery ; 
when the perusal of novels was productive of immense delight, and 
the monthly advent of magazine-day was hailed as an exciting 
holiday; when to know Thompson, who had written a magazine- 
article, was an honour and a privilege ; and to see Brown, the 
author of the last romance, in the flesh, and actually walking in the 
Park with his umbrella and Mrs. Brown, was an event remarkable, 
and to the end of life to be perfectly well remembered ; when the 
women of this world were a thousand times more beautiful than 
those of the present time ; and the houris of the theatres especially 


6 


THE NEWCOMES 


so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to set the heart in 
motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half-an-hour 
previously at the door of the pit; when tailors called at a man’s 
lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy-waistcoats : when it 
seemed necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing-case, so as to 
be ready for the beard which was not yet born (as yearling brides 
provide lace caps, and work rich clothes for the expected darling) ; 
when to ride in the Park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the 
height of fashionable enjoyment, and to splash your college tutor as 
you were driving down Regent Street in a hired cab the triumph of 
satire ; when the acme of pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of 
Trinity at the Bedford, and to make an arrangement with him, and 
with King of Corpus (who was staying at the Colonnade), and 
Martin of Trinity Hall (who was with his family in Bloomsbury 
Square), to dine at the Piazza, go to the play and see Braham in 
“ Fra Diavolo,” and end the frolic evening by partaking of supper 
and a song at the “ Cave of Harmony.” — It was in the days of my 
own youth, then, that I met one or two of the characters who are 
to figure in this history, and whom I must ask leave to accompany 
for a short while, and until, familiarised with the public, they can 
make their own way. As I recall them the roses bloom again, and 
the nightingales sing by the calm Bendemeer. 

Going to the play then, and to the pit, as was the fashion in 
those merry days, with some young fellows of my own age, having 
listened delighted to the most cheerful and brilliant of operas, and 
laughed enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry 
at twelve o’clock at night, and a desire for welsh-rabbits and good 
old glee-singing led us to the “Cave of Harmony,” then kept by 
the celebrated Hoskins, among whose friends we were proud to 
count. 

We enjoyed such intimacy with Mr. Hoskins that he never 
failed to greet us with a kind nod; and John the waiter made 
room for us near the President of the convivial meeting. We knew 
the three admirable glee-singers, and many a time they partook of 
brandy-and-water at our expense. One of us gave his call dinner 
at Hoskins’s, and a merry time we had of it. Where are you, 
0 Hoskins, bird of the night 1 ? Do you warble your songs by 
Acheron, or troll your choruses by the banks of black Avernus 1 

The goes of stout, “ The Chough and Crow,” the welsh-rabbit, 
“ The Red-Cross Knight,” the hot brandy-and-water (the brown, 
the strong !), “ The Bloom is on the Rye ” (the bloom isn’t on the 
rye any more !) — the song and the cup, in a word, passed round 
merrily; and, I dare say, the songs and bumpers were encored. 
It happened that there was a very small attendance at the “ Cave ” 


THE NEWCOMES 


7 


that night, and we were all more sociable and friendly because the 
company was select. The songs were chiefly of the sentimental 
class ; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which I 
speak. 

There came into the “ Cave ” a gentleman with a lean brown 
face and long black mustachios, dressed in very loose clothes, and 
evidently a stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it 
for a long time. He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in 
his company ; and, calling for sherry-and- water, he listened to the 
music, and twirled his mustachios with great enthusiasm. 

At the very first glimpse of me the boy jumped up from the 
table, bounded across the room, ran to me with his hands out, and, 
blushing, said, “ Don’t you know me ” 

It was little ISTewcome, my schoolfellow, whom I had not seen 
for six years, grown a fine tall young stripling now, with the 
same bright blue eyes which I remembered when he was quite a 
little boy. 

“ What the deuce brings you here 1 ” said I. 

He laughed and looked roguish. “ My father — that’s my 
father — would come. He’s just come back from India. He says 
all the wits used to come here, — Mr. Sheridan, Captain Morris, 
Colonel Hanger, Professor Porson. I told him your name, and 
that you used to be very kind to me when I first went to Smith- 
field. I’ve left now : I’m to have a private tutor. I say, I’ve got 
such a jolly pony. It’s better fun than old Smiffle.” 

Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcome’s father, pointing to 
a waiter to follow him with his glass of sherry-and-water, strode 
across the room twirling his mustachios, and came up to the table 
where we sat, making a salutation with his hat in a very stately 
and polite manner, so that Hoskins himself was, as it were, obliged 
to bow ; the glee-singers murmured among themselves (their eyes 
rolling over their glasses towards one another as they sucked 
brandy-and-water), and that mischievous little wag, little Nadab 
the Improvisatore (who had just come in), began to mimic him, 
feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the manner of the stranger, 
and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in the most ludicrous 
manner. Hoskins checked this ribaldry by sternly looking towards 
Nadab, and at the same time calling upon the gents to give their 
orders, the waiter being in the room, and Mr. Bellew about to sing 
a song. 

Newcome’s father came up and held out his hand to me. I 
dare say I blushed, for I had been comparing him to the admirable 
Harley in the “ Critic,” and had christened him Don Ferolo 
Whiskerandos. 


8 


THE NEWCOMES 


He spoke in a voice exceedingly soft and pleasant, and with a 
cordiality so simple and sincere, that my laughter shrank away 
ashamed ; and gave place to a feeling much more respectful and 
friendly. In youth, you see, one is touched by kindness. A man 
of the world may, of course, be grateful or not as he chooses. 

“ I have heard of your kindness, sir,” says he, “to my boy. 
And whoever is kind to him is kind to me. Will you allow me to 
sit down by you? and may I beg you to try my cheroots?” We 
were friends in a minute — young Newcome snuggling by my side, 
his father opposite, to whom, after a minute or two of conversation, 
I presented my three college friends. 

“You have come here, gentlemen, to see the wits,” says the 
Colonel. “ Are there any celebrated persons in the room ? I have 
been five-and-thirty years from home, and want to see all that is to 
be seen.” 

King of Corpus (who was an incorrigible wag) was on the point 
of pulling some dreadful longbow, and pointing out a half-dozen of 
people in the room, as Rogers, and Hook, and Luttrel, &c., the 
most celebrated wits of that day ; but I cut King’s shins under the 
table, and got the fellow to hold his tongue. 

“ Maxima debetur pueris ,” says Jones (a fellow of very kind 
feeling, who has gone into the Church since), and, writing on his 
card to Hoskins, hinted to him that a boy was in the room, and 
a gentleman who was quite a greenhorn : hence that the songs had 
better be carefully selected. 

And so they were. A lady’s school might have come in, and, 
but for the smell of the cigars and brandy-and-water, have taken 
no harm by what happened. Why should it not always be so? 
If there are any “ Caves of Harmony ” now, I warrant Messieurs 
the landlords, their interests would be better consulted by keeping 
their singers within bounds. The very greatest scamps like pretty 
songs, and are melted by them ; so are honest people. It was 
worth a guinea to see the simple Colonel, and his delight at the 
music. He forgot all about the distinguished wits whom he had 
expected to see in his ravishment over the glees. 

“ I say, Clive, this is delightful. This is better than your 
aunt’s concert with all the Squallinis, hey? I shall come here 
often. Landlord, may I venture to ask those gentlemen if they 
will take any refreshment? What are their names?” (to one of 
his neighbours). “I was scarcely allowed to hear any singing 
before I went out, except an oratorio, where I fell asleep ; but 
this, by George, is as fine as Incledon ! ” He became quite excited 
over his sherry-and-water — (“I’m sorry to see you, gentlemen, 
drinking brandy-pawnee,” says he; “it plays the deuce with our 


THE NEWCOMES 


9 


young men in India.”) He joined in all the choruses with an 
exceedingly sweet voice. He laughed at “ The Derby Ram ” so 
that it did you good to hear him ; and when Hoskins sang (as he 
did admirably) “ The Old English Gentleman,” and described, in 
measured cadence, the death of that venerable aristocrat, tears 
trickled down the honest warrior’s cheek, while he held out his 
hand to Hoskins and said, “ Thank you, sir, for that song ; it is an 
honour to human nature.” On which Hoskins began to cry too. 

And now young Nadab, having been cautioned, commenced one 
of those surprising feats of improvisation with which he used to 
charm audiences. He took us all off, and had rhymes pat about all 
the principal persons in the room : King’s pins (which he wore very 
splendid), Martin’s red waistcoat, &c. The Colonel was charmed 
with each feat, and joined delighted with the chorus — “ Ritolderol- 
ritolderol ritolderolderay ” (bis). And, when coming to the Colonel 
himself, Nadab burst out — 

“ A military ‘gent I see — And while his face I scan, 

I think you’ll all agree with me — He came from Hindostan. 

And by his side sits laughing free — A youth with curly head, 

I think you’ll all agree with me — That he was best in bed. 

Ritolderol,” &c. 

The Colonel laughed immensely at this sally, and clapped his 
son, young Clive, on the shoulder : “ Hear what he says of you, sir 1 ? 
Clive, best be off to bed, my boy — ho, ho ! No, no. We know a 
trick worth two of that. ‘We won’t go home till morning, till 
daylight does appear.’ Why should we ? Why shouldn’t my boy 
have innocent pleasure ? I was allowed none when I was a young 
chap, and the severity was nearly the ruin of me. I must go and 
speak with that young man — the most astonishing thing I ever 
heard in my life. What’s his name? Mr. Nadab? Mr. Nadab; 
sir, you have delighted me. May I make so free as to ask you to 
come and dine with me to-morrow at six? Colonel Newcome, if 
you please, Nerot’s Hotel, Clifford Street. I am always proud to 
make the acquaintance of men of genius, and you are one, or my 
name is not Newcome ! ” 

“ Sir, you do me Hhonour,” says Mr. Nadab, pulling up his 
shirt-collars, “ and per’aps the day will come when the world will 
do me justice. May I put down your hhonoured name for my book 
of poems ? ” 

“ Of course, my dear sir,” says the enthusiastic Colonel, “ I’ll 
send them all over India. Put me down for six copies, and do me 
the favour to bring them to-morrow when you come to dinner.” 

And now Mr. Hoskins, asking if any gentleman would volunteer 


10 


THE NEWCOMES 


a song, what was our amazement when the simple Colonel offered 
to sing himself, at which the room applauded vociferously ; whilst 
methought poor Clive Newcome hung down his head, and blushed 
as red as a peony. I felt for the young lad, and thought what my 
own sensations would have been if, in that place, my own uncle, 
Major Pendennis, had suddenly proposed to exert his lyrical powers. 

The Colonel selected the ditty of “ Wapping Old Stairs ” (a 
ballad so sweet and touching that surely any English poet might 
be proud to be the father of it), and he sang this quaint and charm- 
ing old song in an exceedingly pleasant voice, with flourishes and 
roulades in the old Incledon manner, which has pretty nearly passed 
away. The singer gave his heart and soul to the simple ballad, 
and delivered Molly’s gentle appeal so pathetically that even the 
professional gentlemen hummed and buzzed a sincere applause ; 
and some wags, who were inclined to jeer at the beginning of the 
performance, clinked their glasses and rapped their sticks with quite 
a respectful enthusiasm. When the song was over, Clive held up 
his head too ; after the shock of the first verse, looked round with 
surprise and pleasure in his eyes ; and we, I need not say, backed 
our friend, delighted to see him come out of his queer scrape so 
triumphantly. The Colonel bowed and smiled with very pleasant 
good-nature at our plaudits. It was like Dr. Primrose preaching 
his sermon in the prison. There was something touching in the 
naivete and kindness of the placid and simple gentleman. 

Great Hoskins, placed on high, amidst the tuneful choir, was 
pleased to signify his approbation, and gave his guest’s health in his 
usual dignified manner. “ I am much obliged to you, sir,” says 
Mr. Hoskins ; “ the room ought to be much obliged to you : I 
drink your ’ealth and song, sir ; ” and he bowed to the Colonel 
politely over his glass of brandy-and-water, of which he absorbed a 
little in his customer’s honour. “ I have not heard that song,” he 
was kind enough to say, “ better performed since Mr. Incledon sung 
it. He was a great singer, sir, and I may say, in the words of our 
immortal Shakspeare, that, take him for all in all, we shall not 
look upon his like again.” 

The Colonel blushed in his turn, and turning round to his boy 
with an arch smile, said, “ I learnt it from Incledon. I used to 
slip out from Grey Friars to hear him, Heaven bless me, forty 
years ago ; and I used to be flogged afterwards, and served me 
right too. Lord ! Lord ! how the time passes ! ” He drank off 
his sherry -and-water, and fell back in his chair; we could see he 
was thinking about his youth — the golden time — the happy, the 
bright, the unforgotten. I was myself nearly two-and-twenty years 
of age at that period, and felt as old as, ay, older than the Colonel. 


THE NEWCOMES 


11 


Whilst he was singing his ballad, there had walked, or rather 
reeled, into the room, a gentleman in a military frock-coat and 
duck trousers of dubious hue, with whose name and person some 
of my readers are perhaps already acquainted. In fact, it was my 
friend Captain Costigan, in his usual condition at this hour of the 
night. 

Holding on by various tables, the Captain had sidled up, with- 
out accident to himself or any of the jugs and glasses round about 
him, to the table where we sat, and had taken his place near 
the writer, his old acquaintance. He warbled the refrain of the 
Colonel’s song, not inharmoniously ; and saluted its pathetic con- 
clusion with a subdued hiccup, and a plentiful effusion of tears. 
“ Bedad, it is a beautiful song,” says he, “ and many a time I heard 
poor Harry Incledon sing it.” 

“ He’s a great character,” whispered that unlucky King of 
Corpus to his neighbour the Colonel ; “ was a Captain in the 
army. We call him the General. Captain Costigan, will you 
take something to drink ? ” 

“ Bedad, I will,” says the Captain, “ and I’ll sing ye a song tu.” 

And, having procured a glass of whisky-and-water from the 
passing waiter, the poor old man, settling his face into a horrid 
grin, and leering, as he was wont, when he gave what he called 
one of his prime songs, began his music. 

The unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing 
or saying, selected one of the most outrageous performances of his 
repertoire , fired off a tipsy howl by way of overture, and away 
he went. At the end of the second verse the Colonel started up, 
clapping on his hat, seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as 
though he had been going to do battle with a Pindaree. “Silence!” 
he roared out. 

“ Hear, hear ! ” cried certain wags at a farther table. “ Go 
on, Costigan ! ” said others. 

“Go on ! ” cries the Colonel, in his high voice, trembling with 
anger. “Does any gentleman say ‘Go on?’ Does any man who 
has a wife and sisters, or children at home, say ‘Go on ’ to such 
disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a 
gentleman, and to say that you hold the king’s commission, and 
to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the 
ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash ? ” 

“ Why do you bring young boys here, old boy ? ” cries a voice 
of the malcontents. 

“Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of 
gentlemen,” cried out the indignant Colonel. “ Because I never 
could have believed that Englishmen could meet together and allow 


12 


THE NEWCOMES 


a man, and an old man, so to disgrace himself. For shame, you 
old wretch ! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner ! And 
for my part, I’m not sorry that my son should see, for once in his 
life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour, drunkenness 
and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir ! — 
Curse the change ! ” says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. 
“ Keep it till you see me in this place again ; which will be never 
— by George, never ! ” And shouldering his stick, and scowling 
round at the company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentle- 
man stalked away, his boy after him. 

Clive seemed rather shamefaced ; but I fear the rest of the 
company looked still more foolish. 

“ Aussi que diable venait-il faire dans cette galore?” says 
King of Corpus to Jones of Trinity; and Jones gave a shrug of 
his shoulders, which were smarting, perhaps; for that uplifted 
cane of the Colonel’s had somehow fallen on the back of every man 
in the room. 


CHAPTER II 

COLONEL NEWCOME'S WILD OATS 
> the young gentleman who has just gone to bed is to be 



the hero of the following pages, we had best begin our 


* account of him with his family history, which luckily is not 
very long. 

When pigtails still grew on the backs of the British gentry, 
and their wives wore cushions on their heads, over which they tied 
their own hair, and disguised it with powder and pomatum : when 
Ministers went in their stars and orders to the House of Commons, 
and the orators of the Opposition attacked nightly the noble lord in 
the blue riband : when Mr. Washington was heading the American 
rebels with a courage, it must be confessed, worthy of a better 
cause : there came up to London, out of a Northern county, 
Mr. Thomas Newcome, afterwards Thomas Newcome, Esq., and 
sheriff of London, afterwards Mr. Alderman Newcome, the 
founder of the family whose name has given the title to this 
history. It was but in the reign of George III. that Mr. New- 
come first made his appearance in Cheapside ; having made his 
entry into London on a waggon, which landed him and some bales 
of cloth, all his fortune, in Bishopsgate Street : though, if it 
could be proved that the Normans wore pigtails under William 
the Conqueror, and Mr. Washington fought against the English 
under King Richard in Palestine, I am sure some of the present 
Newcomes would pay the Heralds’ Office handsomely, living, as 
they do, amongst the noblest of the land, and giving entertain- 
ments to none but the very highest nobility and elite of the 
fashionable and diplomatic world, as you may read any day in 
the newspapers. For though these Newcomes have got a pedigree 
from the College, which is printed in Budge’s “ Landed Aristo- 
cracy of Great Britain,” and which proves that the Newcome of 
Cromwell’s army, and the Newcome who was among the last six 
who were hanged by Queen Mary for Protestantism, were ancestors 
of this house ; of which a member distinguished himself at Bosworth 
Field; and the founder, slain by King Harold’s side at Hastings, 
had been surgeon-barber to King Edward the Confessor; yet, 


14 


THE NEWCOMES 


between ourselves, I think that Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, 
could not believe a word of the story, any more than the rest of 
the world does, although a number of his children bear names out 
of the Saxon Calendar. 

Was Thomas Newcome a foundling — a workhouse child out of 
that village, which has now become a great manufacturing town, 
and which bears his name ? Such was the report set about at the 
last election, when Sir Brian, in the Conservative interest, contested 
the borough ; and Mr. Yapp, the out-and-out Liberal candidate, 
had a picture of the old workhouse placarded over the town as the 
birthplace of the Newcomes ; and placards ironically exciting free- 
men to vote for Newcome and union — Newcome and the parish 
interests, &c. Who cares for these local scandals? It matters 
very little to those who have the good fortune to be invited to 
Lady Ann Newcome’s parties whether her beautiful daughters can 
trace their pedigrees no higher than to the alderman, their grand- 
father; or whether, through the mythic ancestral barber- surgeon, 
they hang on to the chin of Edward, Confessor and King. 

Thomas Newcome, who had been a weaver in his native village, 
brought the very best character for honesty, thrift, and ingenuity 
with him to London, where he was taken into the house of Hobson 
Brothers, cloth-factors ; afterwards Hobson and Newcome. This fact 
may suffice to indicate Thomas Newcome’s story. Like Whittington, 
and many other London apprentices, he began poor and ended by 
marrying his master’s daughter, and becoming sheriff and alderman 
of the City of London. 

But it was only en secondes noces that he espoused the wealthy 
and religious, and eminent (such was the word applied to certain 
professing Christians in these days) Sophia Alethea Hobson — a 
woman who, considerably older than Mr. Newcome, had the advan- 
tage of surviving him many years. Her mansion at Clapham was 
long the resort of the most favoured amongst the religious world. 
The most eloquent expounders, the most gifted missionaries, the most 
interesting converts from foreign islands, were to be found at her 
sumptuous table, spread with the produce of her magnificent gardens. 
Heaven indeed blessed those gardens with plenty, as many reverend 
gentlemen remarked ; there were no finer grapes, peaches, or pine- 
apples in all England. Mr. Whitfield himself christened her ; and 
it was said generally in the City, and by her friends, that Miss 
Hobson’s two Christian names, Sophia and Alethea, were two 
Greek words, which, being interpreted, meant wisdom and truth. 
She, her villa and gardens, are now no more ; but Sophia Ter 
race, Upper and Lower Alethea Road, and Hobson’s Buildings, 
Square, &c., show every quarter-day that the ground sacred to her 


THE NEWCOMES 15 

(and freehold) still bears plenteous fruit for the descendants of 
this eminent woman. 

We are, however, advancing matters. When Thomas Newcome 
had been some time in London he quitted the house of Hobson, 
finding an opening, though in a much smaller way, for himself. 
And no sooner did his business prosper, than he went down into 
the north, like a man, to a pretty girl whom he had left there, and 
whom he had promised to marry. What seemed an imprudent 
match (for his wife had nothing but a pale face, that had grown 
older and paler with long waiting) turned out a very lucky one for 
Newcome. The whole country side was pleased to think of the 
prosperous London tradesman returning to keep his promise to the 
penniless girl whom he had loved in the days of his own poverty ; 
the great country clothiers, who knew his prudence and honesty, 
gave him much of their business when he went back to London. 
Susan Newcome would have lived to be a rich woman had not 
fate ended her career, within a year after her marriage, when she 
died giving birth to a son. 

Newcome had a nurse for the child, and a cottage at Clapham, 
hard by Mr. Hobson’s house, where he had often walked in the 
garden of a Sunday, and been invited to sit down to take a glass 
of wine. Since he had left their service, the house had added a 
banking business, which was greatly helped by the Quakers and 
their religious connection ; and Newcome, keeping his account 
there, and gradually increasing his business, was held in very good 
esteem by his former employers, and invited sometimes to tea at 
the Hermitage ; for which entertainments he did not, in truth, 
much care at first, being a City man, a good deal tired with his 
business during the day, and apt to go to sleep over the sermons, 
expoundings, and hymns, with which the gifted preachers, mis- 
sionaries, &c., who were always at the Hermitage, used to wind 
up the evening, before supper. Nor was he a supping man (in 
which case he would have found the parties pleasanter, for in 
Egypt itself there were not more savoury fleshpots than at Clap- 
ham) ; he was very moderate in his meals, of a bilious temperament, 
and, besides, obliged to be in town early in the morning, always 
setting off to walk an hour before the first coach. 

But when his poor Susan died, Miss Hobson, by her father’s 
demise, having now become a partner in the house, as well as 
heiress to the pious and childless Zechariah Hobson, her uncle : 
Mr. Newcome, with his little boy in his hand, met Miss Hobson 
as she was coming out of meeting one Sunday ; and the child 
looked so pretty (Mr. N. was a very personable, fresh-coloured man 
himself; he wore powder to the end, and topboots and brass- 


16 


THE NEWCOMES 


buttons : in his later days, after he had been sheriff — indeed, 
one of the finest specimens of the old London merchant) : Miss 
Hobson, I say, invited him and little Tommy into the grounds 
of the Hermitage; did not quarrel with the innocent child for 
frisking about on the hay on the lawn, which lay basking in the 
Sabbath sunshine, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece 
of pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hothouse grapes, and a tract 
in one syllable. Tommy was ill the next day ; but on the next 
Sunday his father was at meeting. 

He became very soon after this an awakened man ; and the 
tittling and tattling, and the sneering and gossiping, all over Clap- 
ham, and the talk on ’Change, and the pokes in the waistcoat 
administered by the wags to Newcome — “ Newcome, give you joy, 
my boy ; ” “ Newcome, new partner in Hobson’s ; ” “ Newcome, 
just take in this paper to Hobson’s, they’ll do it, I warrant,” &c. 
&c. ; and the groans of the Rev. Gideon Bawls, of the Rev. 
Athanasius O’Grady, that eminent convert from Popery, who, 
quarrelling with each other, yea, striving one against another, 
had yet two sentiments in common, their love for Miss Hobson, 
and their dread, their hatred of the worldly Newcome; all these 
squabbles and jokes, and pribbles and prabbles, look you, may be 
omitted. As gallantly as he had married a woman without a penny, 
as gallantly as he had conquered his poverty and achieved his own 
independence, so bravely he went in and won the great City prize 
with a fortune of a quarter of a million. And every one of his old 
friends, and every honest-hearted fellow who likes to see shrewdness, 
and honesty, and courage succeed, was glad of his good fortune, 
and said, “ Newcome, my boy,” (or “ Newcome, my buck,” if they 
were old city cronies, and very familiar), “ I give you joy.” 

Of course Mr. Newcome might have gone into Parliament : of 
course before the close of his life he might have been made a 
Baronet : but he eschewed honours senatorial or blood-red hands. 
“ It wouldn’t do,” with his good sense he said ; “ the Quaker 
connection wouldn’t like it.” His wife never cared about being 
called Lady Newcome. To manage the great house of Hobson 
Brothers and Newcome; to attend to the interests of the enslaved 
negro ; to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the truth ; 
to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Papists; to arouse the in- 
different and often blasphemous mariner ; to guide the washerwoman 
in the right way ; to head all the public charities of her sect, and 
do a thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of ; to answer 
myriads of letters, pension endless ministers, and supply their 
teeming wives with continuous baby-linen ; to hear preachers daily 
bawling for hours, and listen untired on her knees after a long day’s 


THE NEWCOMES 


17 


labour, while florid rhapsodists belaboured cushions above her with 
wearisome benedictions ; all these things had this woman to do, and 
for near fourscore years she fought her fight womanfully : imperious 
but deserving to rule, hard but doing her duty, severe but charitable, 
and untiring in generosity as in labour : unforgiving in but one 
instance — that of her husband’s eldest son, Thomas Newcome ; 
the little boy who had played on the hay, and whom at first she 
had loved very sternly and fondly. 

Mr. Thomas Newcome, the father of his wife’s twin boys, the 
junior partner of the house of Hobson Brothers & Co., lived several 
years after winning the great prize about which all his friends so 
congratulated him. But he was, after all, only the junior partner 
of the house. His wife was manager in Threadneedle Street and at 
home : when the clerical gentlemen prayed they importuned Heaven 
for that sainted woman a long time before they thought of asking 
any favour for her husband. The gardeners touched their hats, the 
clerks at the bank brought him the books, but they took their orders 
from her, not from him. I think he grew weary of the prayer- 
meetings, he yawned over the sufferings of the negroes, and wished 
the converted Jews at Jericho. About the time the French 
Emperor was meeting with his Russian reverses Mr. Newcome 
died : his mausoleum is in Clapham Churchyard, near the modest 
grave where his first wife reposes. 

When his father married, Mr. Thomas Newcome, jun., and 
Sarah his nurse were transported from the cottage where they had 
lived in great comfort to the palace hard by, surrounded by lawns 
and gardens, pineries, graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all kinds. 
This paradise, five miles from the Standard at Cornhill, was 
separated from the outer world by a thick hedge of tall trees, and 
an ivy-covered porter’s gate, through which they who travelled to 
London on the top of the Clapham coach could only get a glimpse 
of the bliss within. It was a serious paradise. As you entered at 
the gate, gravity fell on you ; and decorum wrapped you in a garment 
of starch. The butcher-boy who galloped his horse and cart madly 
about the adjoining lanes and common whistled wild melodies 
(caught up in abominable play-house galleries), and joked with a 
hundred cookmaids, on passing that lodge fell into an undertaker’s 
pace, and delivered his joints and sweetbreads silently at the 
servants’ entrance. The rooks in the elms cawed sermons at 
morning and evening; the peacocks walked demurely on the terraces; 
the guinea-fowls looked more quaker-like than those savoury birds 
usually do. The lodge-keeper was serious, and a clerk at a neigh- 
bouring chapel. The pastors who entered at that gate, and greeted 
his comely wife and children, fed the little lambkins with tracts. 


18 


THE NEWCOMES 


The head-gardener was a Scotch Calvinist, after the strictest order, 
only occupying himself with the melons and pines provisionally, and 
until the end of the world, which event, he could prove by infallible 
calculations, was to come off in two or three years at farthest. 
Wherefore, he asked, should the butler brew strong ale to be 
drunken three years hence ; or the housekeeper (a follower of J oanna 
Southcote) make provisions of fine linen and lay up stores of jams 1 
On a Sunday (which good old Saxon word was scarcely known at 
the Hermitage) the household marched away in separate couples or 
groups to at least half-a-dozen of religious edifices, each to sit under 
his or her favourite minister, the only man who went to Church 
being Thomas Newcome, accompanied by Tommy his little son, and 
Sarah his nurse, who was, I believe, also his aunt, or, at least, his 
mother’s first cousin. Tommy was taught hymns, very soon after 
he could speak, appropriate to his tender age, pointing out to him 
the inevitable fate of wicked children, and giving him the earliest 
possible warning and description of the punishment of little sinners. 
He repeated these poems to his stepmother after dinner, before a 
great shining mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, 
plum-cake, port-wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men 
in black, with baggy white neckcloths, who took the little man 
between their knees, and questioned him as to his right understand- 
ing of the place whither naughty boys were bound. They patted 
his head with their fat hands if he said well, or rebuked him if he 
was bold, as he often was. 

Nurse Sarah or Aunt Sarah would have died had she remained 
many years in that stifling garden of Eden. She could not bear to 
part from the child whom her mistress and kinswoman had confided 
to her (the women had worked in the same room at Newcome’s, and 
loved each other always, when Susan became a merchant’s lady, and 
Sarah her servant)* She was nobody in the pompous new household 
but Master Tommy’s nurse. The honest soul never mentioned her 
relationship to the boy’s mother, nor indeed did Mr. Newcome 
acquaint his new family with that circumstance. The housekeeper 
called her an Erastian : Mrs. Newcome’s own serious maid informed 
against her for telling Tommy stories of Lancashire witches, and 
believing in the same. The black footman (Madam’s maid and the 
butler were of course privately united) persecuted her with his 
addresses, and was even encouraged by his mistress, who thought 
of sending him as a missionary to the Niger. No little love, and 
fidelity, and constancy did honest Sarah show and use during the 
years she passed at the Hermitage, and until Tommy went to school. 
Her master, with many private prayers and entreaties, in which he 
passionately recalled his former wife’s memory and affection, implored 


THE NEW COMES 


19 


his friend to stay with him ; and Tommy’s fondness for her and 
artless caresses, and the scrapes he got into, and the howls he 
uttered over the hymns and catechisms which he was bidden to 
learn (by Rev. T. Clack, of Highbury College, his daily tutor, who 
was commissioned to spare not the rod, neither to spoil the child), 
all these causes induced Sarah to remain with her young master 
until such time as he was sent to school. 

Meanwhile an event of prodigious importance, a wonderment, 
a blessing and a delight, had happened at the Hermitage. About 
two years after Mrs. Newcome’s marriage, the lady being then 
forty-three years of age, no less than two little cherubs appeared 
in the Clapham Paradise — the twins, Hobson Newcome and Brian 
Newcome, called after their uncle and late grandfather, whose name 
and rank they were destined to perpetuate. And now there was 
no reason why young Newcome should not go to school. Old Mr. 
Hobson and his brother had been educated at that school of Grey 
-Friars, of which mention has been made in former works : and to 
Grey Friars Thomas Newcome was accordingly sent, exchanging — 
0 ye Gods ! with what delight — the splendour of Clapham for the 
rough, plentiful fare of the place, blacking his master’s shoes with 
perfect readiness, till he rose in the school, and the time came 
when he should have a fag of his own ; tibbing out and receiving 
the penalty therefor; bartering a black eye, per bearer, against a 
bloody nose drawn at sight, with a schoolfellow, and shaking 
hands the next day ; playing at cricket, hockey, prisoners’ base, 
and football, according to the season ; and gorging himself and 
friends with tarts when he had money (and of this he had plenty) 
to spend. I have seen his name carved upon the Gown Boys’ 
arch ; but he was at school long before my time ; his son showed 
me the name when we were boys together, in some year when 
George the Fourth was king. 

The pleasures of this school-life were such to Tommy Newcome, 
that he did not care to go home for a holiday : and indeed, by 
insubordination and boisterousness ; by playing tricks and breaking 
windows ; by marauding upon the gardener’s peaches and the house- 
keeper’s jam ; by upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart (of 
which wanton and careless injury the Baronet’s nose bore marks to 
his dying day) ; by going to sleep during the sermons, and treating 
reverend gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the 
merited wrath of his stepmother; and many punishments in this 
present life, besides those of a future and much more durable kind, 
which the good lady did not fail to point that he must undoubtedly 
inherit. His father, at Mrs. Newcome’s instigation, certainly 
whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers m the go-cart; 


20 


THE NEWCOMES 


but, upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other 
peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcome refused at once, using 
a wicked, worldly expression, which might well shock any serious 
lady : saying, in fact, that he would be d — d if he beat the boy 
any more, and that he got flogging enough at school, in which 
opinion Master Tommy fully coincided. 

The undaunted woman, his stepmother, was not to be made 
to forego her plans for the boy’s reform by any such vulgar 
ribaldries ; and Mr. Newcome being absent in the City on his 
business, and Tommy refractory as usual, she summoned the serious 
butler and the black footman (for the lashings of whose brethren 
she felt an unaffected pity) to operate together in the chastisement 
of this young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against the 
butler’s shins as to draw blood from his comely limbs, and to cause 
that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer for many days 
after; and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would demolish 
blacky’s ugly face with it; nay, he threatened to discharge it at 
Mrs. Newcome’s own head before he would submit to the coercion 
which she desired her agents to administer. 

High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that 
night on the gentleman’s return home from the City, and on his 
learning the events of the morning. It is to be feared he made 
use of further oaths, which hasty ejaculations need not be set down 
in this place ; at any rate, he behaved with spirit and manliness as 
master of the house, vowed that, if any servant laid a hand on the 
child, he would thrash him first and then discharge him ; and, I 
dare say, expressed himself with bitterness and regret that he had 
married a wife who would not be obedient to her husband, and had 
entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the master. 
Friends were called in — the interference, the supplications of the 
Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage, 
prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel ; and, no doubt, the good 
sense of Mrs. Newcome— who, though imperious, was yet not un- 
kind ; and who, excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own 
that she was sometimes in fault, — induced her to make at least a 
temporary submission to the man whom she had placed at the head 
of her house, and whom, it must be confessed, she had vowed to 
love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of the scarlet fever, which 
afflicting event occurred presently after the above dispute, his own 
nurse, Sarah, could not have been more tender, watchful, and 
affectionate, than his stepmother showed herself to be. She nursed 
him through his illness : allowed his food and medicine to be 
administered by no other hand ; sat up with the boy through a 
night of his fever, and uttered not one single reproach to her 


THE NEWCOMES 


21 


husband (who watched with her) when the twins took the disease 
(from which we need not say they happily recovered) ; and though 
young Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking her for Nurse 
Sarah, addressed her as his dear Fat Sally — whereas .no whipping- 
post to which she ever would have tied him could have been leaner 
than Mrs. Newcome — and, under this feverish delusion, actually 
abused her to her face, calling her an old cat, an old Methodist ; 
and, jumping up in his little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy, 
vowed that he would put on his clothes and run away to Sally. 
Sally was at her northern home by this time, with a liberal pension 
which Mr. Newcome gave her, and which his son and his son’s son 
after him, through all their difficulties and distresses, always found 
mekns to pay. 

What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, 
no doubt, more than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. 
A year after, he actually ran away, not from school, but from home ; 
and appeared one morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah’s cottage, 
two hundred miles away from Clapham, who housed the poor 
prodigal, and killed her calf for him — washed him, with many 
tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which 
slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose 
sure instinct backed by Mrs. Newcome’s own quick intelligence, 
had made him at once aware whither the young runaway had fled. 
The poor father came horsewhip in hand — he knew of no other 
law or means to maintain his authority ; many and many a time 
had his own father, the old weaver, whose memory he loved and 
honoured, strapped and beaten him. Seeing this instrument in 
his parent’s hand, as Mr. Newcome thrust out the weeping, trem- 
bling Sarah and closed the door upon her, Tommy, scared out of 
a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate ; 
and, getting up out of bed, received his punishment without a 
word. Very likely the father suffered more than the child ; for, 
when the punishment was over, the little man, yet trembling and 
quivering with the pain, held out his little bleeding hand and said, 
“ I can — I can take it from you, sir ; ” saying which his face 
flushed, and his eyes filled for the first time ; whereupon the father 
burst into a passion of tears, embraced the boy and kissed him, 
besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more — flung the whip 
away from him and swore, come what would, he would never strike 
him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy 
reconciliation. The three dined together in Sarah’s cottage. Per- 
haps the father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes 
and fields where he had wandered as a young fellow : where he 
had first courted and first kissed the young girl he loved — poor 


22 


THE NEWCOMES 


child — who had waited for him so faithfully and fondly, who had 
passed so many a day of patient want and meek expectance, to be 
repaid by such a scant holiday and brief fruition. 

Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom’s 
absence after his return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with 
him, and that night read the parable of the Prodigal in a very 
low and quiet voice. 

This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon 
broke out again between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineer- 
ing stepmother. It was not that he was very bad, or she perhaps 
more stern than other ladies, but the two could not agree. The 
boy sulked and was miserable at home. He fell to drinking with 
the grooms in the. stables. I think he went to Epsom races, and 
was discovered after that act of rebellion. Driving from a most 
interesting breakfast at Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew 
convert had spoken, oh ! so graciously !) Mrs. Newcome — in her 
state carriage, with her bay horses — met Tom, her stepson, in a 
tax-cart, excited by drink, and accompanied by all sorts of friends, 
male and female. John, the black man, was bidden to descend 
from the carriage and bring him to Mrs. Newcome. He came : 
his voice was thick with drink ; he laughed wildly ; he described 
a fight at which he had been present. It was not possible that 
such a castaway as this should continue in a house where her two 
little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace. 

The boy had a great fancy for India ; and “ Orme’s History,” 
containing the exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite 
book of all in his father’s library. Being offered a writership, he 
scouted the idea of a civil appointment, and would be contented 
with nothing but a uniform. A cavalry cadetship was procured 
for Thomas Newcome; and the young man’s future career being 
thus determined, and his stepmother’s unwilling consent procured, 
Mr. Newcome thought fit to send his son to a tutor for military 
instruction, and removed him from the London school, where, in 
truth, he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters. 
The lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for 
the army, and received rather a better professional education than 
fell to the lot of most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated 
the mathematics and fortification with more assiduity than he had 
ever bestowed on Greek and Latin, and especially made such a 
progress in the French tongue as was very uncommon among the 
British youth his contemporaries. 

In the study of this agreeable language, over which young 
Newcome spent a great deal of his time, he unluckily had some 
instructors who were destined to bring the poor lad into yet further 


THE NEWCOMES 


23 


trouble at home. His tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Black- 
heath, and, not far from thence, on the road to Woolwich, dwelt 
the little Chevalier de Blois, at whose house the young man much 
preferred to take his French lessons rather than to receive them 
under his tutor’s own roof. 

For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two 
pretty young daughters, with whom he had fled from his country 
along with thousands of French gentlemen at the period of revolu- 
tion and emigration. He was a cadet of a very ancient family, 
and his brother, the Marquis de Blois, was a fugitive like himself, 
but with the army of the princes on the Rhine, or with his exiled 
sovereign at Mittau. The Chevalier had seen the wars of the 
Great Frederick : what man could be found better to teach young 
Newcome the French language, and the art military ? It was 
surprising with what assiduity he pursued his studies. Made- 
moiselle L km ore, the Chevalier’s daughter, would carry on her 
little industry very undisturbedly in the same parlour with her 
father and his pupil. She painted card-racks ; laboured at em- 
broidery; was ready to employ her quick little brain or fingers 
in any way by which she could find means to add a few shillings 
to the scanty store on which this exiled family supported them- 
selves in their day of misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was 
not in the least unquiet about her, because she was promised in 
marriage to the! Comte de Florae, also of the emigration, a distin- 
guished officer like the Chevalier, than whom he was a year older, 
and, at the time of which we speak, engaged in London in giving 
private lessons on the fiddle. Sometimes, on a Sunday, he would 
walk to Blackheath with that instrument in his hand, and pay his 
court to his young fiancee , and talk over happier days with his 
old companion in arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons 
on a Sunday. He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, 
strange to say, he never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois. 

What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome 
and ardent, generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or with- 
out strong affections to bind them elsewhere, — what happens when 
they meet daily over French dictionaries, embroidery frames, or, 
indeed, upon any business whatever? No doubt Mademoiselle 
Ldonore was a young lady perfectly bien elevee, and ready, as every 
well-elevated young Frenchwoman should be, to accept a husband 
of her parents’ choosing ; but while the elderly M. de Florae was 
fiddling in London, there was that handsome young Tom Newcome 
'ever present at Blackheath. To make a long matter short, Tom 
declared his passion, and was for marrying Ldonore off-hand, if she 
would but come with him to the little Catholic chapel at Woolwich. 


24* THE NEWCOMES 

Why should they not go out to India together and be happy ever 
after ? 

The innocent little amour may have been several months in 
transaction, and was discovered by Mrs. Newcome, whose keen 
spectacles nothing could escape. It chanced that she drove to 
Blackheath to Tom’s tutor. Tom was absent taking his French 
and drawing lesson of M. de Blois. Thither Tom’s stepmother 
followed him, and found the young man sure enough with his 
instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle 
and her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens 
she could not hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome’s 
sharp glances. In one moment the banker’s wife saw the whole 
affair — the whole mystery which had been passing for months 
under poor M. de Blois’ nose, without his having the least notion 
of the truth. 

Mrs. Newcome said she wanted her son to return home with 
her upon private affairs ; and, before they had reached the 
Hermitage, a fine battle had ensued between them. His mother 
had charged him with being a wretch and a monster, and he had 
replied fiercely, denying the accusation with scorn, and announcing 
his wish instantly to marry the most virtuous, the most beautiful 
of her sex. To marry a Papist ! This was all that was wanted 
to make poor Tom’s cup of bitterness run over. Mr. Newcome 
was called in, and the two elders passed a great /part of the night 
in an assault upon the lad. He was grown too tall for the cane ; 
but Mrs. Newcome thonged him with the lash of her indignation 
for many an hour that evening. 

He was forbidden to enter M. de Blois’ house, a prohibition at 
which the spirited young fellow snapped his fingers, and laughed 
in scorn. Nothing, he swore, but death should part him from the 
young lady. On the next day his father came to him alone and 
plied him with entreaties, but he was as obdurate as before. He 
would have her; nothing should prevent him. He cocked his 
hat and walked out of the lodge-gate, as his father, quite beaten 
by the young man’s obstinacy, with haggard face and tearful eyes, 
went his own way into town. He was not. very angry himself : 
in the course of their talk overnight the boy had spoken bravely 
and honestly, and Newcome could remember how, in his own 
early life, he, too, had courted and loved a young lass. It was 
Mrs. Newcome the father was afraid of. Who shall depict her 
wrath at the idea that a child of her house was about to marry 
a Popish girl ? 

So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon 
falling straightway down upon his knees before L^onore, and 


THE NEWCOMES 


25 


having the Chevalier’s blessing. That old fiddler in London 
scarcely seemed to him to be an obstacle : it seemed monstrous 
that a young creature should be given away to a man older 
than her own father. He did not know the law of honour, as it 
obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or how religiously 
their daughters were bound by it. 

But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had 
visited the Chevalier de Blois almost at cock-crow. She charged 
him insolently with being privy to the attachment between the 
young people ; pursued him with vulgar rebukes about beggary, 
Popery, and French adventurers. Her husband had to make a 
very contrite apology afterwards for the language which his wife 
had thought fit to employ. “ You forbid me,” said the Chevalier, 
“ you forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son Mr. Thomas ! 
No, madam, she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally 
itself with persons of your class ; and is promised to a gentleman 
whose ancestors were dukes and peers when Mr. Newcome’s were 
blacking shoes ! ” Instead of finding his pretty blushing girl on 
arriving at Woolwich, poor Tom only found his French master, 
livid with rage and quivering under his ailes de 'pigeon. We 
pass over the scenes that followed : the young man’s passionate 
entreaties, and fury, and despair. In his own defence, and to 
prove his honour to the world, M. de Blois determined that his 
daughter should instantly marry the Count. The poor girl yielded 
without a word, as became her ; and it was with this marriage 
effected almost before his eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair, 
that young Newcome embarked for India, and quitted the parents 
whom he was never more to see. 

Tom’s name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters 
to his father were written to the City ; very pleasant they were, 
and comforting to the father’s heart. He sent Tom liberal private 
remittances to India, until the boy wrote to say that he wanted 
no more. Mr. Newcome would have liked to leave Tom all his 
private fortune, for the twins were only too well cared for; but 
he dared not on account of his terror of Sophia Alethea, his wife ; 
and he died, and poor Tom was only secretly forgiven. 


CHAPTER III 

COLONEL NEW COMES LETTER-BOX 


I 

W ITH the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up 
my pen to announce to you the happy arrival of the 
Ramchunder , and the dearest and handsomest little 
boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little Clive is in 
perfect health. He speaks English wonderfully well. He cried 
when he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly 
brought him from Southampton in a post-chaise, but these tears 
in childhood are of very brief duration ! The voyage, Mr. Sneid 
states, was most favourable, occupying only four months and eleven 
days. How different from that more lengthened and dangerous 
passage of eight months, and almost perpetual sea-sickness, in 
which my poor dear sister Emma went to Bengal, to become the 
wife of the best of husbands and the mother of the dearest of little 
boys, and to enjoy these inestimable blessings for so brief an 
interval ! She has quitted this wicked and wretched world for one 
where all is peace. The misery and ill-treatment which she en- 
dured from Captain Casey, her first odious husband, were, I am 
sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel, by your subsequent affection. 
If the most sumptuous dresses which London, even Paris, could 
supply, jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace, and everything 
lovely and fashionable could content a woman, these, I am sure, 
during the last four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what 
avail are they when this scene of vanity is closed 1 

“ Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. 
They stayed a week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, 
where they visited Bonaparte’s tomb (another instance of the 
vanity of all things !) and their voyage was enlivened off Ascension 
by the taking of some delicious turtle ! 

“ You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have 
placed to my credit with the Messrs. Hobson & Co., shall be 
faithfully expended on my dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can 
scarcely be called his grandmamma, I suppose ; and I dare say her 
methodistical ladyship will not care to see the daughter and grand- 


THE NEWCOMES 


27 

son of a clergyman of the Church of England ! My brother Charles 
took leave to wait upon her when he presented your last most 
generous bill at the bank. She received him most rudely , and 
said a fool and his money are soon parted ; and when Charles said, 
‘ Madam, I am the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,’ — 
‘Sir,” says she, ‘I judge nobody; but from all accounts, you are 
the brother of a very vain, idle, thoughtless, extravagant woman ; 
and Thomas Newcome was as foolish about his wife as about his 
money.’ Of course, unless Mrs. N. w T rites to invite dear Clive, I 
shall not think of sending him to Clapham. 

“ It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the beautiful shawl 
you have sent me, and shall keep it in lavender till next winter ! 
My brother, who thanks you for your continuous bounty, will 
write next month, and report progress as to his dear pupil. Clive 
will add a postscript of his own, and I am, my dear Major, with a 
thousand thanks for your kindness to me, your grateful and 
affectionate Martha Honeyman.” 

In a round hand and on lines ruled with pencil : — 

“ Dearest Papa i am very well i hope you are Very Well. Mr. 
Sneed brought me in a postchaise i like Mr. Sneed very much, i 
like Aunt Martha i like Hannah. There are no ships here i am 
your affectionate son Clive Newcome.” 

n 

“Rue St. Dominique St. Germain, Paris, 
“ Nov . 15, 1820. 

“ Long separated from the country which was the home of my 
youth, I carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always 
a lively gratitude. The Heaven has placed me in a position very 
different from that in which I knew you. I have been the mother 
of many children. My husband has recovered a portion of the 
property which the Devolution tore from us ; and France, in re- 
turning to its legitimate sovereign, received once more the nobility 
which accompanied his august house into exile. We, however, 
preceded his Majesty, more happy than many of our companions. 
Believing further resistance to be useless, — dazzled, perhaps, by 
the brilliancy of that genius which restored order, submitted Europe, 
and governed France, — M. de Florae, in the first days, was recon- 
ciled to the Conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz, and held a posi- 
tion in his Imperial Court. This submission, at first attributed 
to infidelity, has subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His 
sufferings during the Hundred Days made to pardon his adhesion 


28 


THE NEWCOMES 


to him who was Emperor. My husband is now an old man. He 
was of the disastrous campaign of Moscow, as one of the chamber- 
lains of Napoleon. Withdrawn from the world he gives his time 
to his feeble health — to his family — to Heaven. 

“ I have not forgotten a time before those days, when, accord- 
ing to promises given by my father, I became the wife of M. de 
Florae. Sometimes I have heard of your career. One of my 
parents, M. de F., who took service in the English India, has 
entertained me of you; he informed me how, yet a young man, 
you won laurels at Argom'and Bhartpour ! how you escaped to death 
at Laswari. I have followed them, sir, on the map. I have taken 
part in your victories and your glory. Ah ! I am not so cold but my 
heart has trembled for your dangers ! not so aged but I remember 
the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederic the first 
rudiments of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, your courage 
were your own. None had to teach you those qualities, of which 
a good God had endowed you. My good father is dead since many 
years. He, too, was permitted to see France before to die. 

“I have read in the English journals not only that you are 
married, but that you have a son. Permit me to send to your 
wife, to your child, these accompanying tokens of an old friend- 
ship. I have seen that Mrs. Newcome was widow, and am not 
sorry of it. My friend, I hope there was not that difference of 
age between your wife and you that I have known in other unions. 
I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold you always in my 
memory. As I write the past comes back to me. I see a noble 
young man, who has a soft voice and brown eyes. I see the 
Thames, and the smiling plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray 
at my chamber-door as my father talks to you in our little cabinet 
of studies. I look from my window, and see you depart. 

“ My sons are men : one follows the profession of arms, one 
has embraced the ecclesiastical state; my daughter is herself a 
mother. I remember this was your birthday ; I have made myself 
a little fete in celebrating it, after how many years of absence, of 
silence ! Comtesse de Florac. 

“ (Nee L. de Blois.)” 

in 

“My dear Thomas, — Mr. Sneid, supercargo of the Ram- 
chunder East Indiaman, handed over to us yesterday your letter, 
and, to-day, I have purchased three thousand three hundred and 
twenty-three pounds 6 and 8c?. three per cent. Consols, in our 
joint names (H. and B. Newcome), held for your little boy. Mr. 
S. gives a very favourable account of the little man, and left him in 


THE NEWCOMES 


29 

perfect health two days since, at the house of his aunt, Miss Honey- 
man. We have placed <£200 to that lady’s credit, at your desire. 

“Lady Ann is charmed with the present which she received 
yesterday, and says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. 
My mother is also greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by 
the coach to Brighton, to-day, a packet of hooks, tracts, &c., suited 
for his tender age, for your little boy. She heard of you lately 
from the Rev. T. Sweatenham, on his return from India. He spoke 
of your kindness, and of the hospitable manner in which you had re- 
ceived him at your house, and alluded to you in a very handsome way 
in the course of the thanksgiving that evening. I dare say my 
mother will ask your little boy to the Hermitage ; and, when we 
have a house of our own, I am sure Ann and I will be very happy 
to see him. — Yours affectionately, B. Newcome. 

“ Major Newcome.' 


IV 

“ My dear Colonel, — Did I not know the generosity of your 
heart, and the bountiful means which Heaven has put at your 
disposal in order to gratify that noble disposition ; were I not 
certain that the small sum I require will permanently place me 
beyond the reach of the difficulties of life, and will infallibly be 
repaid before six months are over, believe me I never would have 
ventured upon that bold step which our friendship (carried on 
epistolarily as it has been), our relationship, and your admirable 
disposition, have induced me to venture to take. 

“ That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittle- 
sea’s, Denmark Street, Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined 
on venturing my all in its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the 
foundation of a competence for myself and excellent sister. What 
is a lodging-house at Brighton but an uncertain maintenance ? The 
mariner on the sea before those cliffs is no more sure of wind and 
wave, or of fish to his laborious net, than the Brighton house-owner 
(bred in affluence she may have been, and used to unremitting 
plenty) to the support of the casual travellers who visit the city. 
On one day they come in shoals, it is true, but where are they on 
the next? For many months my poor sister’s first-floor was a 
desert, until occupied by your noble little boy, my nephew and 
pupil. Clive is everything that a father’s, an uncle’s (who loves 
him as a father), a pastor’s, a teacher’s, affection could desire. He 
is not one of those premature geniuses whose much-vaunted infantine 
talents disappear along with adolescence ; he is not, I frankly own, 
more advanced in his classical and mathematical studies than some 


30 


THE NEWCOMES 


children even younger than himself ; but he has acquired the rudi- 
ments of health ; he has laid in a store of honesty and good-humour, 
which are not less likely to advance him in life than mere science 
and language, than the as in prcesenti, or the pons asinorvm. 

“ But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, 
the subject of this letter — namely, the acquisition of the proprietary 
chapel to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a 
fortune, if aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out. 
What is a curacy but a synonym for starvation ? If we accuse the 
Eremites of old of wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses, 
what shall we say to many a hermit of Protestant, and so-called 
civilised times, who hides his head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and 
buries his probably fine talents in a Lincolnshire fen? Have I 
genius 1 Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence to thrill and soothe, 
to arouse the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to cheer and convince 
the timid, to lead the blind groping in darkness, and to trample 
the audacious sceptic in the dust ? My own conscience, besides a 
hundred testimonials from places of popular, most popular worship, 
from reverend prelates, from distinguished clergy, tell me I have 
these gifts. A voice within me cries, ‘ Go forth, Charles Honeyman, 
fight the good fight ; wipe the tears of the repentant sinner ; sing 
of hope to the agonised criminal ; whisper courage, brother, courage, 
at the ghastly deathbed, and strike down the infidel with the lance 
of evidence and the shield of reason ! ’ In a pecuniary point of view 
I am confident, nay, the calculations may be established as irresis- 
tibly as an algebraic equation, that I can realise, as incumbent of 
Lady Whittlesea’s chapel, the sum of not less than one thousand 
pounds per annum. Such a sum, with economy (and without it 
what sum were sufficient ?) will enable me to provide amply for my 
wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and some 
other creditors very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman 
in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, 
only to vacate it at the beck of every passing stranger ! 

“ My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter 
some modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being 
anxious at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the 
income of the Whittlesea chapel I propose to allow Miss Honeyman 
the sum of two hundred pounds per annum, paid quarterly. This, 
with her private property, which she has kept more thriftily than 
her unfortunate and confiding brother guarded his (for whenever I 
had a guinea a tale of distress would melt it into half), will enable 
Miss Honeyman to live in a way becoming my father’s daughter. 

“ Comforted with this provision as my sister will be, I would 
suggest that our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her 


THE NEWCOMES 


31 


petticoat government, and given up to the care of his affectionate 
uncle and tutor. His present allowance will most liberally suffice for 
his expenses, hoard, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I 
shall be able to exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his studies, 
his conduct, and his highest welfare , which I cannot so conveniently 
exercise at Brighton, where I am but Miss Honey man’s stipendiary, 
and where I often have to submit in cases wffiere I know, for dearest 
Clive’s own welfare, it is I, and not my sister, should be paramomit. 

“ I have given, then, to a friend, the Rev. Marcus Flather, a 
draft for two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at 
your agent’s in Calcutta, which sum will go in liquidation of dear 
Clive’s first year’s board with me, or, upon my word of honour as 
a gentleman and clergyman, 
shall be paid back at three 
months after sight, if you will 
draw upon me. As I never— 
no, were it my last penny in 
the world — would dishonour 
your draft, I implore you, my 
dear Colonel, not to refuse 
mine. My credit in this city, 
where credit is everything, 
and the awful future so little 
thought of, my engagements 
to Mr. Flather, my own pros- 
pects in life, and the comfort 
of my dear sister’s declining 
years, all — all depend upon 
this bold, this eventful mea- 
sure. My ruin or my earthly 
happiness lies entirely in your 
hands. Can I doubt which 
way your kind heart will lead 
you, and that you will come 
to the aid of your affectionate 
brother-in-law, 

“Charles Honeyman. 

“P,S . — Our little Clive 
has been to London on a visit 
to his uncles, and to the Her- 
mitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother, the 
wealthy Mrs. Newcome. I pass over words disparaging of myself 
which the child in his artless prattle subsequently narrated. She 




32 


THE NEWCOMES 


was very gracious to him, and presented him with a five-pound note, 
a copy of Kirke White’s Poems, and a work called ‘ Little Henry 
and his Bearer,’ relating to India, and the excellent Catechism of 
our Church. Clive is full of humour, and I enclose you a rude 
scrap representing the bishopess of Clapham, as she is called, — 
the other figure is a rude though entertaining sketch of some other 
droll personage. 

“ Lieutenant-Colonel Newcomb, &c.” 


y 

“My dear Colonel, — The Rev. Marcus Flather has just 
written me a letter at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, 
informing me that my brother Charles has given him a draft upon 
you for two hundred and fifty pounds, when, goodness knows, it is 
not you but we who are many, many hundred pounds debtors to 
you. Charles has explained that he drew the bill at your desire, 
that you wrote to say you would be glad to serve him in any way, 
and that the money is wanted to make his fortune. Yet I don’t 
know, poor Charles is always going to make his fortune and has 
never done it. That school which he bought, and for which you 
and me between us paid the purchase-money, turned out no good, 
and the only pupils left at the end of the first half-year were two 
woolly-headed poor little mulattos, whose father was in gaol at St. 
Kitts, and whom I kept actually in my own second-floor back-room 
whilst the lawyers were settling things, and Charles was away in 
France, and until my dearest little Clive came to live with me. 

“ Then, as he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive 
could not do better than stay with his old aunt, and have his uncle 
Charles for a tutor, who is one of the finest scholars in the world. 
I wish you could hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander 
and more impressive than any divine now in England. His sermons 
you have subscribed for, and likewise his book of elegant poems, 
which are pronounced to be very fine. 

“ When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had 
left off worriting him, I thought, as his frame was much shattered 
and he was too weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better 
than become Clive’s tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your hand- 
some donation of <£250 for Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per 
year, so that, when the board of the two and Clive’s clothing are 
taken into consideration, I think you will see that no great profit 
is left to Miss Martha Honeyman. 

“Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of 


THE NEWCOMES 


33 


making me some grand allowance, — the poor boy is very affec- 
tionate, and always building castles in the air — and of having Clive 
to live with him in London. Now this mustn’t be, and I won’t 
hear of it. Charles is too kind to be a schoolmaster, and Master 
Clive laughs at him. It was only the other day, after his return 
from his grandmamma’s, regarding which I w T rote you, per Burram- 
j pooter , the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and 
Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. I put it away, 
but some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me and 
Hannah too. Mr. Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and 
says he is a wonder at drawing. 

“ Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London 
next month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey 
to Dr. Timpany’s school, Marine Parade, of which I hear •the best 
account, but I hope you will think of soon sending him to a great 
school. My father always said it was the best place for boys, and 
I have a brother to whom my poor mother spared the rod, and who, 
I fear, has turned out but a spoilt child. — I am, dear Colonel, 
your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman. 

“Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B.” 


VI 

“ My dear Brother, — I hasten to inform you of a calamity 
which, though it might be looked for in the course of nature, has 
occasioned deep grief not only in our family but in this city. This 
morning at half-past four o’clock, our beloved and respected mother, 
Sophia Alethea Newcome, expired, at the advanced age of eighty- 
three years. On the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12-1 3th, 
having been engaged reading and writing in her library until a late 
hour, and having dismissed the servants, whom she never would 
allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and his wife, who 
always are in the habit of retiring early f Mrs. Newcome extinguished 
the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room, and 
must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the 
maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and 
endeavouring to stanch a wound in her forehead, which was bleed- 
ing profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the 
stair. 

“When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still 
sensible, and medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. 
Mr. Newcome and Lady Ann both hurried to her apartment, and 
she knew them, and took the hands of each, but paralysis had 
8 c 


34 


THE NEWCOMES 


probably ensued in consequence of the shock of the fall ; nor was 
her voice ever heard, except in inarticulate moanings, since the 
hour, on the previous evening, when she gave them her blessing and 
bade them good-night. Thus perished this good and excellent 
woman, the truest Christian, the most charitable friend to the poor 
and needful, the head of this great house of business, the best and 
most affectionate of mothers. 

“ The contents of her will have long been known to us, and 
that document was dated one month after our lamented father’s 
death. Mr. Thomas Newcome’s property being divided equally 
amongst his three sons, the property of his second wife naturally 
devolves upon her own issue, my brother Brian and myself. There 
are very heavy legacies to servants and to charitable and religious 
institutions, of which, in life, she was the munificent patroness ; 
and I regret, my dear brother, that no memorial to you should 
have been left by my mother, because she often spoke of you 
latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on which she 
died, commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left un- 
finished on the library table. My brother said that on that same 
day, at breakfast, she pointed to a volume of Orme’s ‘ Hindostan,’ 
the book, she said, which set poor dear Tom wild to go to India. 
I know you will be pleased to hear of these proofs of returning 
good-will and affection in one who often spoke latterly of her early 
regard for you. I have no more time, under the weight of business 
which this present affliction entails, than to say that I am yours, 
dear brother, very sincerely, H. Newcome. 

“Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, &c." 


CHAPTER IV 


IN WHICH THE AUTHOR AND THE HERO RESUME THEIR 
ACQUAINTANCE 

I F we are to narrate the youthful history not only of the hero of 
this tale, but of the hero’s father, we shall never have done 
with nursery biography. A gentleman’s grandmother may 
delight in fond recapitulation of her darling’s boyish frolics and 
early genius ; but shall we weary our kind readers by this infantile 
prattle, and set down the revered British public for an old woman ? 
Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences 
of a man’s early youth interesting : to the parent who nursed him ; 
to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him ; to 
himself always and supremely — whatever may be his actual pros- 
perity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or 
disappointments — the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him, 
the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever 
faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say, regarding the juvenile 
biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history I am the 
Chronicler, only so much as is sufficient to account for some peculi- 
arities of his character, and for his subsequent career in the world. 

Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young 
Newcome at the seat of learning where we first met was very brief 
and casual. He had the advantage of being six years the junior of 
his present biographer, and such a difference of age between lads at 
a public school puts intimacy out of the question — a junior ensign 
being no more familiar with the Commander-in-chief at the Horse 
Guards; or a barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief- 
Justice on the bench, than the newly-breeched infant in the Petties 
with a senior boy in a tailed coat. We knew each other at 
home,” as our school phrase was, and our families were somewhat 
acquainted : Newcome’s maternal uncle, the Rev. Charles Honey- 
man (the highly-gifted preacher, and incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s 
Chapel, Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the child, 
after the Christmas vacation of 182 — , to the Grey Friars School, 
recommended him, in a neat complimentary speech, to my superin- 
tendence and protection. My uncle, Major Pendennis, had, for a 


36 


THE NEWCOMES 


while, a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and 
professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great 
admiration for him — an admiration which I shared in my early 
youth, but which has been modified by maturer judgment. 

Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his 
young nephew’s father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a 
most gallant and distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment 
of the Honourable East India Company ; and that his uncles, the 
Colonel’s half-brothers, were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm 
of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryan- 
stone Square, and Marble Head, Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, 
of Newcome, and Park Lane, “whom to name,” says Mr. Honeyman, 
with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest 
circumstances of life, “is to designate two of the merchant princes 
of the wealthiest city the world has ever known ; and one, if not 
two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round the throne 
of the most elegant and refined of European sovereigns.” I promised 
Mr. Honeyman to do what I could for the boy ; and he proceeded 
to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in terms equally 
eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green purse, from 
which he extracted the sum of two and sixpence, which he presented 
to the child, who received the money with rather a queer twinkle in 
his blue eyes. 

After that day’s school, I met my little protege in the neigh- 
bourhood of the pastrycook’s, regaling himself with raspberry tarts. 
“You must not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave 
you,” said I (having perhaps even at that early age a slightly 
satirical turn), “in tarts and gingerbeer.” 

The urchin rubbed the raspberry jam off his mouth, and said, 
“ It don’t matter, sir, for I’ve got lots more.” 

“How much'?” says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of 
interrogation used to be, when a new boy came to the school, 
“What’s your name 1 ? Who’s your father? and How much money 
have you got ? ” 

The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his 
pocket as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. 
“Uncle Hobson,” says he, “gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me 
one — no, Aunt Hobson gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome 
gave me three pound; and Aunt Ann gave me one pound five; 
and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in a letter. And Ethel 
wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn’t have it, you know ; 
because Ethel’s younger than me, and I have plenty.” 

“ And who is Ethel? ” asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless 
youth’s confessions. 


THE NEW COMES 


■37 


“Ethel is my cousin,” replies little Newcome; “Aunt Ann’s 
daughter. There’s Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Ann wanted the 
baby to be called Boadicea, only uncle wouldn’t ; and there’s Barnes 
and Egbert and little Alfred ; only he don’t count, he’s quite a baby, 
you know. Egbert and me was at school at Timpany’s ; he’s going 
to Eton next half. He’s older than me, but I can lick him.” 

“And how old is Egbert?” asks the smiling senior. 

“ Egbert’s ten, and I’m nine, and Ethel’s seven,” replies the 
little chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers’ 
pockets, and jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let 
me be his banker ; and, keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he 
handed over the others, on which he drew with great liberality till 
his whole stock was expended. The school-hours of the upper and 
under boys were different at that time ; the little fellows coming 
out of their hall half-an-hour before the Fifth and Sixth Forms; 
and many a time I used to find my little blue-jacket in waiting, with 
his honest square face, and white hair, and bright blue eyes, and I 
knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of the 
pretty blue eyes was shut up, and a fine black one substituted in 
its place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic en- 
counter with a giant of his own Form, whom he had worsted in the 
combat. “ Didn’t I pitch into him, that’s all ! ” says he in the 
elation of victory ; and when I asked whence the quarrel arose, he 
stoutly informed me that “Wolf Minor, his opponent, had been 
bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic Newcome) wouldn’t 
stand it.” 

So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God 
bless you to the brave little man, who remained awhile at the Grey 
Friars, where his career and troubles had only just begun. Nor did 
we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers 
in the Temple, where our rencontre took place in the manner already 
described. 

Poor Costigan’s outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting 
-with my schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and 
unpleasantly that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or, at any 
rate, to renew my acquaintance with the indignant East Indian 
warrior who had quitted our company in such a huff. Breakfast, 
however, was scarcely over in my chambers the next morning, when 
there came a knock at the outer door, and my clerk introduced 
“ Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome.” 

Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, 
Temple, felt a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the 
visitors ; for, if the truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much 
as I had been occupied on the night previous, and was smoking a 


38 


THE NEWCOMES 


cigar over the Times newspaper. How many young men in the 
Temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read the Times ? 
My friend and companion of those days, and all days, Mr. George 
Warrington, was employed with his short pipe, and was not in the 
least disconcerted at the appearance of the visitors, as he would not 
have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in. 

Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while 
the Colonel shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yester- 
day’s wrath were visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted 
his bronzed countenance, as he, too, looked round the old room with 
its dingy curtains and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, 
blotted manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles, 
cigar-boxes, and what not. 

“ I went off in a flame of fire last night,” says the Colonel, 
“ and being cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on 
Mr. Pendennis and apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct 
of that tipsy old Captain — what is his name ? — was so abominable, 
that I could not bear that Clive should be any longer in the same 
room with him, and I went off without saying a word of thanks or 
good-night to my son’s old friend. I owe you a shake of the hand 
for last night, Mr. Pendennis.” And, so saying, he was kind enough 
to give me his hand a second time. 

“ And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir ? ” our guest went 
on. “I know your writings very well. Clive here used to send 
me the Pall Mall Gazette every month.” 

“We took it at Smiffle, regular,” says Clive. “ Always patronise 
Grey Friars men.” “ Smiffle,” it must be explained, is a fond 
abbreviation for Smithfield, near to which great mart of mutton 
and oxen our school is situated, and old Cistercians often playfully 
designate their place of education by the name of the neighbouring 
market. 

“ Clive sent me the Gazette every month ; and I read your 
romance of 1 Walter Lorraine ’ in my boat as I was coming down 
the river to Calcutta.” 

“Have Pen’s immortal productions made their appearance on 
board Bengalee budgerows ; and are their leaves floating on the 
yellow banks of Jumna?” asks Warrington, that sceptic, who 
respects no work of modern genius. 

“I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins at Calcutta,” says the 
Colonel simply. “ I dare say you have heard of her. She is one 
of the most dashing women in all India. She was delighted with 
your work ; and I can tell you it is not with every man’s writing 
that Mrs. Timmins is pleased,” he added, with a knowing air. 

“ It’s capital,” broke in Clive. “ I say, that part, you know, 


THE NEWCOMES 


39 


where Walter runs away with Nesera, and the General can’t pursue 
them, though he has got the post-chaise at the door, because Tim 
O’Toole has hidden his wooden leg ! By Jove, it’s capital ! — all the 
funny part. — I don’t like the sentimental stuff, and suicide and 
that ; and as for poetry, I hate poetry.” 

“ Pen’s is not first chop,” says Warrington. “I am obliged to 
take the young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcome. 
Otherwise he would grow so conceited there would be no bearing 
him.” 

“ I say,” says Clive. 

“What were you about to remark 1” asks Mr. Warrington, 
with an air of great interest. 

“ I say, Pendennis,” continued the artless youth, “ I thought 
you were a great swell. When we used to read about the grand 
parties in the Pall Mall Gazette , the fellows used to say you were 
at every one of them, and you see, I thought you must have 
chambers in the Albany, and lots of horses to ride, and a valet and 
a groom, and a cab at the very least.” 

“ Sir,” says the Colonel, “ I hope it is not your practice to 
measure and estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. 
A man of letters follows the noblest calling which any man can 
pursue. I would rather be the author of a work of genius than be 
Covernor-Ceneral of India. I admire genius. I salute it wherever 
I meet it. I like my own profession better than any in the world, 
but then it is because I am suited to it. I couldn’t write four lines 
in verse, no, not to save me from being shot. A man cannot have 
all the advantages of life. Who would not be poor if he could be 
sure of possessing genius, and winning fame and immortality, sir? 
Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where did he 
live ? In apartments that, I dare say, were no better than these, 
which, I am sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant,” says 
the Colonel, thinking he had offended us. “ One of the great plea- 
sures and delights which I had proposed to myself on coming home 
was to be allowed to have the honour of meeting with men of learn- 
ing and genius, with wits, poets, and historians, if I may be so 
fortunate ; and of benefiting by their conversation. I left England 
too young to have that privilege. In my father’s house, money was 
thought of, I fear, rather than intellect ; neither he nor I had the 
opportunities which I wish you to have; and I am surprised you 
should think of reflecting upon Mr. Pendennis’s poverty, or of 
feeling any sentiment but respect and admiration when you enter 
the apartments of the poet and the literary man. I have never 
been in the rooms of a literary man before,” the Colonel said, 
turning away from his son to us ; “ excuse me, is that — that paper 


40 


THE NEWCOMES 


really a proof-sheet 1 ?” We handed over to him that curiosity, 
smiling at the enthusiasm of the honest gentleman who could 
admire what to us was as unpalatable as a tart to a pastrycook. 

Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his 
conversation entirely literary ; and, in the course of my subsequent 
more intimate acquaintance with him, though I knew he had 
distinguished himself in twenty actions, he never could be brought 
to talk of his military feats or experience, but passed them by, as 
if they were subjects utterly unworthy of notice. 

I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men : 
the Doctor’s words were constantly in his mouth ; and he never 
travelled without Boswell’s “ Life.” Besides these, he read Caesar 
and Tacitus, “ with translations, sir, with translations— I’m thank- 
ful that I kept some of my Latin from Grey Friars ; ” and he 
quoted sentences from the Latin Grammar, a propos of a hundred 
events of common life, and with perfect simplicity and satisfaction 
to himself. Besides the above-named books, the “ Spectator,” 
“ Don Quixote,” and “ Sir Charles Grandison ” formed a part of 
his travelling library. “ I read these, sir,” he used to say, “because 
I like to be in the company of gentlemen ; and Sir Roger de 
Coverley, and Sir Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the 
finest gentlemen in the world.” And when we asked him his 
opinion of Fielding — 

“ ‘ Tom Jones,’ sir ; ‘ Joseph Andrews,’ sir,” he cried, twirling 
his mustachios. “ I read them when I was a boy, when I kept 
other bad company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of 
which I’m ashamed now. Sir, in my father’s library I happened 
to fall in with those books ; and I read them in secret, just as I 
used to go in private and drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke 
pipes with Jack and Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs. New- 
come found me, I recollect, with one of those books ; and thinking 
it might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of that sort, for it was 
a grave-looking volume : and though I wouldn’t lie about that or 
anything else — never did, sir; never, before Heaven, have I told 
more than three lies in my life — I kept my own counsel ; — I say, 
she took it herself to read one evening ; and read on gravely — for 
she had no more idea of a joke than I have of Hebrew — until she 

came to the part about Lady B and Joseph Andrews; and 

then she shut the book, sir; and you should have seen the look 
she gave me ! I own I burst out a-laughing, for I was a wild 
young rebel, sir. But she was in the right, sir, and I was in the 
wrong. A book, sir, that tells the story of a parcel of servants, of 
a pack of footmen and ladies’-maids fuddling in alehouses ! Do 
you suppose I want to know what my kitmutgars and cansomahs 


THE NEWCOMES 


41 


are doing ? I am as little proud as any man in the world : but 
there must be distinction, sir ; and as it is my lot and Clive’s lot 
to be a gentleman, I won’t sit in the kitchen and boose in the 
servants’ hall. As for that Tom Jones — that fellow that sells 
himself, sir — by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him ! 
I wouldn’t sit down in the same room with such a fellow, sir. 
If he came in at that door, I would say, ‘How dare you, you 
hireling ruffian, to sully with your presence an apartment where 
my young friend and I are conversing together ? where two gentle- 
men, I say, are taking their wine after dinner 1 ? How dare you, 
you degraded villain ! ’ I don’t mean you, sir. I — I — I beg your 
pardon.” 

The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, 
puffing his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow ban- 
danna; and it was by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his 
apostrophe to Tom Jones was interrupted; he, Larkins, taking 
care not to show his amazement, having been schooled not to 
show or feel surprise at anything he might see or hear in our 
chambers. 

“What is it, Larkins?” said I. Larkins’s other master had 
taken his leave some time before, "having business which called 
him away, and leaving me with the honest Colonel, quite happy 
with his talk and cigar. 

“ It’s Bretts’s man,” says Larkins. 

I confounded Bretts’s man, and told the boy to bid him call 
again. Young Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and 
said — 

“ Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the 
money.” 

“ Confound him,” again I cried. “ Tell him I have no money 
in the house. He must come to-morrow.” 

As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder, and the Colonel’s 
countenance assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. 
Nevertheless, as with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom 
Jones again, and continued — 

“ No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against 
such a fellow as Tom Jones. But I forgot that I need not speak. 
The great and good Dr. Johnson has settled that question. You 
remember what he said to Mr. Boswell about Fielding ? ” 

“And yet Gibbon praises him, Colonel,” said the Colonel’s 
interlocutor, “and that is no small praise. He says that Mr. 
Fielding was of the family that drew its origin from the Counts of 
Hapsburg ; but ” 

“ Gibbon ! Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the 


42 


THE NEWCOMES 


end of this cigar for such a man’s opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a 
gentleman by birth, he ought to have known better ; and so much 
the worse for him that he did not. But what am I talking of, 
wasting your valuable time ? No more smoke, thank you. I must 
away into the City, but would not pass the Temple without calling 
on you, and thanking my boy’s old protector. You will have the 
kindness to come and dine with us — to-morrow, the next day, your 
own day 1 ? Your friend is going out of town? I hope, on his 
return, to have the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. 
Come, Clive.” 

Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth’s engravings 
during the above discussion, or rather oration of his father’s, started 
up and took leave, beseeching me, at the same time, to come soon 
and see his pony ; and so, with renewed greetings, we parted. 

I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the 
knocker of our door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, 
looking very much agitated and confused. 

“ I beg pardon,” says he ; “I think I left my — my ” 

Larkins had quitted the room by this time, and then he began 
more unreservedly. “My dear young friend,” says he, “a 
thousand pardons for what I am going to say, but, as Clive’s 
friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the boy in 
the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius : when 
we were here just now, there came a single knock — a demand — - 
that, that you did not seem to be momentarily able to meet. Now 
do, do pardon the liberty, and let me be your banker. You said 
you were engaged in a new work : it will be a masterpiece, I am 
sure, if it’s like the last. Put me down for twenty copies, and 
allow me to settle with you in advance. I may be off, you know. 
I’m a bird of passage — a restless old soldier.” 

“ My dear Colonel,” said I, quite touched and pleased by this 
extreme kindness, “ my dun was but the washerwoman’s boy, and 
Mrs. Brett is in my debt, if I am not mistaken. Besides, I 
already have a banker in your family.” 

“ In my family, my dear sir ? ” 

“ Messrs. Newcome, in Threadneedle Street, are good enough to 
keep my money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say 
they have some of mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I 
am not in want in order that I might have the pleasure of receiving 
a kindness from you.” And we shook hands for the fourth time 
that morning, and the kind gentleman left me to rejoin his son. 


CHAPTER V 


CLIVE’S UNCLES 


HE dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly 



accepted, and followed by many more entertainments at the 


A cost of that good-natured friend. He and an Indian chum 
of his lived at this time at Nerot’s Hotel, in Clifford Street, where 
Mr. Clive, too, found the good cheer a great deal more to his taste 
than the homely, though plentiful fare at Grey Friars, at which, of 
course, when boys, we all turned up our noses, though many a poor 
fellow, in the struggles of after-life, has looked back with regret 
very likely to that well-spread youthful table. Thus my intimacy 
with the father and the son grew to be considerable, and a great 
deal more to my liking than my relations with Clive’s City uncles, 
which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and which were, 
in truth, exceedingly distant and awful. 

If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were 
like mine, where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, 
Marble Head and Bryanstone Square ? I used, by strong efforts of 
self-denial, to maintain a balance of two or three guineas untouched 
at the bank, so that my account might still remain open; and 
fancied the clerks and cashiers grinned when I went to draw for 
money. Rather than face that awful counter, I would send Larkins, 
the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress. As for entering the 
private parlour at the back, wherein, behind the glazed partition, 
I could see the bald heads of Newcome Brothers engaged with other 
capitalists or peering over the newspaper, I would as soon have 
thought of walking into the Doctor’s own library at Grey Friars, or 
of volunteering to take an arm-chair in a dentist’s studio, and have 
a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct. My good 
uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept 
naturally but a very small account with Hobsons’, would walk into 
the parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with 
the ease and gravity of a Rothschild. “ My good fellow,” the kind 
old gentleman would say to his nephew and pupil, “ il faut se fair e 
valoir . I tell you, sir, your bankers like to keep every gentleman’s 
account. And it’s a mistake to suppose they are only civil to their 


44 


THE NEWCOMES 


great moneyed clients. Look at me. I go into them, and talk to 
them whenever I am in the City. I hear the news of ’Change, 
and carry it to our end of the town. It looks well, sir, to be well 
with your banker ; and at our end of London, perhaps, I can do a 
good turn for the Newcomes.” 

It is certain that, in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. 
James’s, my revered uncle was at least the bankers’ equal. On my 
coming to London, he was kind enough to procure me invitations to 
some of Lady Ann Newcome’s evening parties in Park Lane, as 
likewise to Mrs. Newcome’s entertainments in Bryan stone Square ; 
though, I confess, of these latter, after a while, I was a lax and 
negligent attendant. “Between ourselves, my good fellow,” the 
shrewd old Mentor of those days would say, “ Mrs. Newcome’s 
parties are not altogether select; nor is she a lady of the very 
highest breeding ; but it gives a man a good air to be seen at his 
banker’s house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes whenever 
you are asked.” And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I always 
fancied, rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome’s manner to me, 
that she knew I had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once 
and again, in two or three years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet 
me, and ask me to fill a vacant place that day or the next evening 
at his table ; which invitation I might accept or otherwise. But 
one does not eat a man’s salt, as it were, at these dinners. There 
is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality. Your white 
waistcoat fills a gap in a man’s table, and retires filled for its 
service of the evening. “ Gad,” the dear old Major used to say, 
“ if we were not to talk freely of those we dine with, how mum 
London would be ! Some of the most pleasant evenings I have 
ever spent have been when we have sat after a great dinner, en 
petit comite \ and abused the people who are gone. You have your 
turn, mon cher ; but why not % Do you suppose I fancy my friends 
haven’t found out my little faults and peculiarities 1 And, as I 
can’t help it, I let myself be executed, and offer up my oddities 
de bonne grdce. Entre nous , Brother Hobson Newcome is a 
good fellow, but a vulgar fellow; and his wife — his wife exactly 
suits him.” 

Once a year Lady Ann Newcome (about whom my Mentor was 
much more circumspect; for I somehow used to remark that, as 
the rank of persons grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them 
with more caution and respect) — once or twice in a year Lady Ann 
Newcome opened her saloons for a concert and a ball, at both of 
which the whole street was crowded with carriages, and all the 
great world, and some of the small, were present. Mrs. Newcome 
had her ball too, and her concert of English music in opposition to 


THE NEWCOMES 45 

the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The music of her country, 
Mrs. N. said, was good enough for her . 

The truth must he told, that there was no love lost between the 
two ladies. Brvanstone Square could not forget the superiority of 
Park Lane’s rank ; and the catalogue of grandees at dear Ann’s 
parties filled dear Maria’s heart with envy. There are people upon 
whom rank and worldly goods make such an impression, that they 
naturally fall down on their knees and worship the owners : there 
are others to whom the sight of Prosperity is offensive, and who 
never see Dives’s chariot but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, 
as far as my humble experience would lead me to suppose, is not 
only envious, but proud of her envy. She mistakes it for honesty 
and public spirit. She will not bow down to kiss the hand of a 
haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant’s wife and an attorney’s 
daughter. There is no pride about her. Her brother-in-law, poor 
dear Brian — considering everybody knows everything in London, 
was there ever sucli a delusion as his 1 — was welcome, after banking- 
hours, to forsake his own friends for his wife’s fine relations, and to 
dangle after lords and ladies in Mayfair. She had no such absurd 
vanity — not she. She imparted these opinions pretty liberally to 
all her acquaintances in almost all her conversations. It was dear 
that the two ladies were best apart. There are some folks who will 
see insolence in persons of rank, as there are others who will insist 
that all clergymen are hypocrites, all reformers villains, all place- 
men plunderers, and so forth ; and Mrs. Newcome never, I am sure, 
imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she was other than an 
honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the ladies had 
command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily led by 
woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family. Accordingly, 
when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the City, 
Mr. Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in 
the House of Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson 
unmasked traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to 
make the Marylebone Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady 
Ann, her husband, and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and 
declared for the High Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms 
of alarm regarding the progress of Popery, and shuddered out of the 
chapel where she had a pew, because the clergyman there, for a 
very brief season, appeared to preach in a surplice. 

Poor bewildered Honeyman ! it was a sad day for you, when 
you appeared in your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-hand- 
kerchief (and your sermon likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, 
freshly-mangled surplice, which you thought became you ! How 
did you look aghast, and pass your jewelled hand through your 


46 


THE NEWCOMES 


curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome, who had been as good as five-and- 
twenty pounds a year to you, look up from her pew, seize hold of 
Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew door, drive out with her parasol 
her little flock of children, bewildered, but not ill-pleased to get 
away from the sermon, and summon John from the back seats to 
bring away the bag of prayer-books ! Many a good dinner did 
Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why 
did the high-priest of his diocese order him to put it on 1 It was 
delightful to view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which 
he assumed. Had they been going to tear him to pieces with wild 
beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked more meek, or re- 
signed himself more pathetically to the persecutors. But I am 
advancing matters. At this early time of which I write, a period 
not twenty years since, surplices were not even thought of in con- 
junction with sermons : clerical gentlemen have appeared in them, 
and, under the heavy hand of persecution, have sunk down in their 
pulpits again, as Jack pops back into his box. Charles Honeyman’s 
elegant discourses were at this time preached in a rich silk Master 
of Arts gown, presented to him, along with a teapot full of sove- 
reigns, by his affectionate congregation at Leatherhead. 

But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. 
Newcome and her family, and lest the reader should suppose that 
some slight offered to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous 
banker’s lady was the secret reason for this unfavourable sketch of 
her character, let me be allowed to report, as accurately as I can 

remember them, the words of a kinsman of her own, Giles, 

Esquire, whom I had the honour of meeting at her table, and who, 
as we walked away from Bryanstone Square, was kind enough to 
discourse very freely about the relatives whom he had just left. 

“ That was a good dinner, sir,” said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar 
which I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and com- 
municative. “Hobson Newcome’s table is about as good a one as 
any I ever put my legs under. You didn’t have fwice of turtle, 
sir, I remarked that — I always do, at that house especially, for I 
know where Newcome gets it. We belong to the same livery in 
the City, Hobson and I, the Oystermongers’ Company, sir, and we 
like our turtle good, I can tell you — good and a great deal of it, you 
say. Hay, hay, not so bad ! 

“I suppose you’re a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that 
sort of thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and 
nobody took notice of you. That’s my place too, I’m a relative : 
and Newcome asks me, if he has got a place to spare. He met me 
in the City to-day, and says, ‘ Tom,’ says he, ‘ there’s some dinner 
in the Square at half-past seven : I wish you would go, and fetch 


THE NEWCOMES 


4,7 


Louisa, whom we haven’t seen this ever so long.’ Louisa is 
my wife, sir — Maria’s sister — Newcome married that gal from 
my house. ‘ No, no,’ says I, ‘ Hobson ; Louisa’s engaged nursing 
number eight ’ — that’s our number, sir. The truth is, between you 
and me, sir, my missis won’t come any more at no price. She can’t 
stand it ; Mrs. Newcome’s dam patronising airs is enough to choke 
off anybody. ‘Well, Hobson, my boy,’ says I, ‘a good dinner’s a 
good dinner ; and I’ll come though Louisa won’t, that is, can’t.’ ” 

While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was 
discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr. 
Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps 
of the Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that 
dinner, which Mrs. Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles 
continued talking — “ I’m an old stager, I am. I don’t mind the 
rows between the women. I believe Mrs. Newcome and Lady 
Newcome’s just as bad too ; I know Maria is always driving at her 
one way or the other, and calling her proud and aristocratic, and 
that; and yet my wife says Maria, who pretends to be such a 
Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and his lady. ‘ And 
why should she, Loo, my dear ? ’ says I. ‘ I don’t want to meet 
Lady Newcome, nor Lord Kew, nor any of ’em.’ Lord Kew, ain’t 
it an odd name ? Tearing young swell, that Lord Kew : tremendous 
wild fellow. 

“ I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man ; I was there 
in the old woman’s time, and Mr. Newcome’s — the father of these 
young men — as good a man as ever stood on ’Change.” And then 
Mr. Giles, warming with his subject, enters at large into the history 
of the house. “You see, sir,” says he, “the banking-house of 
Hobson Brothers, or Newcome Brothers, as the partners of the firm 
really are, is not one of the leading banking firms of the City of 
London, but a most respectable house of many years’ standing, and 
doing a most respectable business, especially in the Dissenting 
connection.” After the business came into the hands of the New- 
come Brothers, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, and Sir Brian Newcome, 
Bart., M.P., Mr. Giles showed how a considerable West End 
connection was likewise established, chiefly through the aristocratic 
friends and connections of the above-named Bart. 

But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom 
the firm of Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and 
uncle, better than her husband Mr. T. Newcome, better than her 
sons and successors above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea 
Hobson, afterwards Newcome — of w r hom might be said what 
Frederick the Great said of his sister, that she was sexu foemina, 
vir ingenio — in sex a woman, and in mind a man. Nor was she, 


48 


THE NEWCOMES 


my informant told me, without even manly personal characteristics : 
she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in her old age a beard 
which many a young man might envy ; and as she came into the 
bank out of her carriage from Clapham, in her dark-green pelisse 
with fur trimmings, in her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and great 
gold spectacles, not a clerk in that house did not tremble before her, 
and it was said she only wanted a pipe in her mouth considerably 
to resemble the late Field-Marshal Prince Blucher. 

Her funeral was one of the most imposing sights ever witnessed 
in Clapham. There was such a crowd you might have thought 
it was a Derby day. The carriages of some of the greatest City 
firms, and the wealthiest Dissenting houses ; several coaches full of 
ministers of all denominations, including the Established Church ; 
the carriage of the Right Honourable the Earl of Kew, and that of 
his daughter, Lady Ann Newcome, attended that revered lady’s 
remains to their 'final resting-place. No less than nine sermons 
were preached at various places of public worship regarding her 
end. She fell upstairs at a very advanced age, going from the 
library to the bedroom, after all the household was gone to rest, 
and was found by the maids in the morning, inarticulate, but still 
alive, her head being cut frightfully with the bedroom candle with 
which she was retiring to her apartment. “ And,” said Mr. Giles, 
with great energy, “besides the empty carriages at that funeral, 
and the parson in black, and the mutes and feathers and that, there 
were hundreds and hundreds of people who wore no black, and who 
weren’t present; and who wept for their benefactress, I can tell 
you. She had her faults, and many of ’em; but the amount of 
that woman’s charities are unheard of, sir — unheard of — and they 
are put to the credit side of her account up yonder.” 

“ The old lady had a will of her own,” my companion continued. 
“ She would try and know about everybody’s business out of 
business hours : got to know from the young clerks what chapels 
they went to, and from the clergymen whether they attended 
regular; kept her sons, years after they were grown men, as if 
they were boys at school — and what was the consequence ? They 
had a quarrel with Thomas Newcome’s own son, a harum-scarum 
lad, who ran away, and then was sent to India; and, between 
ourselves, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Brian both, the present baronet, 
though at home they were as mum as Quakers at a meeting, used 
to go out on the sly, sir, and be off to the play, sir, and sowed 
their wild oats, like any other young men, sir, like any other young 
men. Law bless me, once, as I was going away from the Hay- 
market, if I didn’t see Mr. Hobson coming out of the Opera, in 
tights and an opera-hat, sir, like ‘ Froggy would a-wooing go,’ of a 


THfi NEWCOMES 49 

Saturday night too, when his ma thought him safe in bed in the 
City ! I warrant he hadn’t his opera-hat on when he went to 
chapel with her ladyship the next morning — that very morning, 
as sure as my name’s John Giles. 

“ When the old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any 
more humbugging, but took his pleasure freely. Fighting, tandems, 
four-in-hand, anything. He and his brother — his elder brother by 
a quarter of an hour — were always very good friends; but after 
Mr. Brian married, and there were only court-cards at his table, 
Mr. Hobson couldn’t stand it. They weren’t of his suit, he said ; 
and for some time he said he wasn’t a marrying man — quite the 
contrary; but we all come to our fate, you know, and his time 
came as mine did. You know we married sisters % It was thought 
a fine match for Polly Smith when she married the great Mr. 
Newcome; but I doubt whether my old woman at home hasn’t 
had the best of it, after all ; and if ever you come Bernard Street 
way on a Sunday, about six o’clock, and would like a slice of beef 
and a glass of port, I hope you’ll come and see us.” 

Do not let us be too angry with Colonel Newcome’s two most 
respectable brothers, if for some years they neglected their Indian 
relative, or held him in slight esteem. Their mother never par- 
doned him, or at least by any actual words admitted his restoration 
to favour. For many years, as far as they knew, poor Tom was 
an unrepentant prodigal, wallowing in bad company, and cut off 
from all respectable sympathy. Their father had never had the 
courage to acquaint them with his more true, and kind, and chari- 
table version of Tom’s story. So he passed at home for no better 
than a black sheep ; his marriage with a penniless young lady did 
not tend to raise him in the esteem of his relatives at Clapham ; 
it was not until he was a widower, until he had been mentioned 
several times in the Gazette for distinguished military service, until 
they began to speak very well of him in Leadenhall Street, where 
the representatives of Hobson Brothers were of course East India 
proprietors, and until he remitted considerable sums of money to 
England, that the bankers, his brethren, began to be reconciled 
to him. 

I say, do not let us be hard upon them. No people are so 
ready to give a man a bad name as his own kinsfolk ; and, having 
made him that present, they are ever most unwilling to take it 
back again. If they give him nothing else in the days of his 
difficulty, he may be sure of their pity, and that he is held up as 
an example to his young cousins to avoid. If he loses his money, 
they call him poor fellow, and point morals out of him. If he 
falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees of his race turn their 
8 D 


50 THE NEWCOMESJ 

heads aside and leave him penniless and bleeding. They clap him 
on the back kindly enough when he returns, after shipwreck, with 
money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph’s brothers made 
salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when they 
found the poor outcast a prime minister, and worth ever so much 
money ! Surely human nature is not much altered since the days 
of those primeval Jews. We would not thrust brother Joseph down 
a well and sell him bodily, but — but if he has scrambled out of a 
well of his own digging, and got out of his early bondage into re- 
nown and credit, at least we applaud him and respect him, and 
are proud of Joseph as a member of the family. 

Little Clive was the innocent and lucky object upon whom the 
increasing affection of the Newcomes for their Indian brother was 
exhibited. When he was first brought home a sickly child, con- 
signed to his maternal aunt, the kind old maiden lady at Brighton, 
Hobson Brothers scarce took any notice of the little man, but left 
him to the entire superintendence of his own family. Then there 
came a large remittance from his father, and the child was asked 
by Uncle Newcome at Christmas. Then his father’s name was 
mentioned in general orders, and Uncle Hobson asked little Clive 
at Midsummer. Then Lord H., a late Governor-General, coming 
home, and meeting the brothers at a grand dinner at the “ Albion,” 
given by the Court of Directors to his late Excellency, spoke to the 
bankers about that most distinguished officer their relative; and 
Mrs. Hobson drove over to see his aunt, where the boy was ; gave 
him a sovereign out of her purse, and advised strongly that he 
should be sent to Timpany’s along with her own boy. Then Clive 
went from one uncle’s house to another ; and was liked at both ; 
and much preferred ponies to ride, going out after rabbits with the 
keeper, money in his pocket (charged to the debit of Lieut. -Col. 
T. Newcome), and clothes from the London tailor, to the homely 
quarters and conversation of poor kind old Aunt Honeyman at 
Brighton. Clive’s uncles were not unkind ; they liked each other ; 
their wives, who hated each other, united in liking Clive when 
they knew him, and petting the wayward handsome boy : they were 
only pursuing the way of the world, which huzzas at prosperity, 
and turns away from misfortune as from some contagious disease. 
Indeed, how can we see a man’s brilliant qualities if he is what we 
call in the shade ? 

The gentlemen, Clive’s uncles, who had their affairs to mind 
during the day, society and the family to occupy them of evenings 
and holidays, treated their young kinsman, the Indian Colonel’s 
son, as other wealthy British uncles treat other young kinsmen. 
They received him in his vacations kindly enough. They tipped 


THE NEWCOMES 


51 


him when he went to school; when he had the whooping-cough, a 
confidential young clerk went round by way of Grey Friars Square 
to ask after him; the sea being recommended to him, Mrs. New- 
come gave him change of air in Sussex, and transferred him to 
his maternal aunt at Brighton. Then it was bon jour. As the 
lodge-gates closed upon him, Mrs. Newcome’s heart shut up too, 
and confined itself within the firs, laurels, and palings which bound 
the home precincts. Had not she her own children and affairs'? 
her brood of fowls, her Sunday school, her melon-beds, her rose- 
garden, her quarrel with the parson, &c., to attend to? Mr. New- 
come, arriving on a Saturday night, hears he is gone, says “ Oh ! ” 
and begins to ask about the new gravel-walk along the cliff, and 
whether it is completed, and if the China pig fattens kindly upon 
the new feed. 

Clive, in the avuncular gig, is driven over the downs to Brighton 
to his maternal aunt there ; and there he is a king. He has the 
best bedroom, Uncle Honeyman turning out for him ; sweetbreads 
for dinner ; no end of jam for breakfast ; excuses from church on 
the plea of delicate health ; his aunt’s maid to see him to bed ; 
his aunt to come smiling in when he rings his bell of a morning. 
He is made much of, and coaxed, and dandled, and fondled, as if 
he were a young duke. So’ he is to Miss Honeyman. He is the 
son of Colonel Newcome, C.B., who sends her shawls, ivory chess- 
men, scented sandal- wood work-boxes and kincob scarfs; wdio, as 
she tells Hannah the maid, has fifty servants in India ; at which 
Hannah constantly exclaims, “Lor, mum, what can he do with 
’em, mum?” who when, in consequence of her misfortunes, she 
resolved on taking a house at Brighton, and letting part of the 
same furnished, sent her an order for a hundred pounds towards 
the expenses thereof ; who gave Mr. Honeyman, her brother, a 
much larger sum of money at the period of his calamity. Is it 
gratitude for past favours ? is it desire for more ? is it vanity of 
relationship? is it love for the dead sister — or tender regard for 
her offspring which makes Miss Martha Honeyman so fond of 
her nephew ? I never could count how many causes went to pro- 
duce any given effect or action in a person’s life, and have been 
for my own part many a time quite misled in my own case, fancy- 
ing some grand, some magnanimous, some virtuous reason, for an 
act of which I was proud, when lo ! some pert little satirical 
monitor springs up inwardly, upsetting the fond humbug which 
I was cherishing — the peacock’s tail wherein my absurd vanity 
had clad itself — and says, “ Away with this boasting ! / am the 

cause of your virtue, my lad. You are pleased that yesterday, 
at dinner, you refrained from the dry champagne. My name is 


52 


THE NEWCOMES 


Worldly Prudence, not Self-denial, and I caused you to refrain. 
You are pleased, because you gave a guinea to Diddler % I am 
Laziness, not Generosity, which inspired you. You hug yourself 
because you resisted other temptation 1 Coward ! it was because 
you dared not run the risk of the wrong. Out with your peacock’s 
plumage ! walk off in the feathers which Nature gave you, and 
thank Heaven they are not altogether black.” In a word, Aunt 
Honeyman was a kind soul, and such was the splendour of Clive’s 
father, of his gifts, his generosity, his military services, and Com- 
panionship of the Bath, that the lad did really appear a young 
duke to her. And Mrs. Newcome was not unkind : and if Clive 
had been really a young duke, I am sure he would have had the 
best bedroom at Marble Head, and not one of the far-off little 
rooms in the boys’ wing I am sure he wpuld have had jellies 
and Charlottes Russes, instead of mere broth, chicken, and batter 
pudding, such as fell to his lot ; and when he was gone (in the 
carriage, mind you, not in the gig driven by a groom), I am sure 
Mrs. Newcome would have written a letter that night to her 
Grace the Duchess Dowager his mamma, full of praise of the 
dear child, his graciousness, his beauty, and his wit, and declaring 
that she must love him henceforth and for ever after as a son of 
her own. You toss down the page with scorn and say, “It is 
not true. Human nature is not so bad as this cynic would have 
it to be. You would make no difference between the rich and 
the poor.” Be it so. You would not. But own that your next- 
door neighbour would. Nor is this, dear madam, addressed to 
you; no, no, we are not so rude as to talk about you to your 
face ; but, if we may not speak of the lady who has just left the 
room, what is to become of conversation and society % 

We forbear to describe the meeting between the Colonel and 
his son — the pretty boy from whom he had parted more than 
seven years before with such pangs of heart ; and of whom he had 
thought ever since with such a constant longing affection. Half- 
an-hour after the father left the boy, and in his grief and loneli- 
ness was rowing back to shore, Clive was at play with a dozen 
of other children on the sunny deck of the ship. When two bells 
rang for their dinner, they were all hurrying to the cuddy-table, 
and busy over their meal. What a sad repast their parents had 
that day ! How their hearts followed the careless young ones 
home across the great ocean ! Mothers’ prayers go with them. 
Strong men, alone on their knees, with streaming eyes and broken 
accents, implore Heaven for those little ones, who were prattling 
at their sides but a few hours since. Long after they are gone, 


THE NEWCOMES 


53 


careless and happy, recollections of the sweet past rise up and 
smite those who remain : the flowers they had planted in their 
little gardens, the toys they played with, the little vacant cribs 
they slept in as fathers’ eyes looked blessings down on them. 
Most of us, who have passed a couple of score of years in the 
world, have had such sights as these to move us. And those who 
have will think none the worse of my worthy Colonel for his tender 
and faithful heart. 

With that fidelity which was an instinct of his nature, this 
brave man thought ever of his absent child, and longed after him. 
He never forsook the native servants and nurses who had had 
charge of the child, but endowed them with money sufficient (and 
indeed little was wanted by people of that frugal race) to make 
all their future lives comfortable. No friends went to Europe, nor 
ship departed, but Newcome sent presents and remembrances to 
the boy, and costly tokens of his love and thanks to all who were 
kind to his son. What a strange pathos seems to me to accom- 
pany all our Indian story ! Besides that official history which fills 
Gazettes, and embroiders banners with names of victory ; which 
gives moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; 
and enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour — besides 
the splendour and conquest, the wealth and glory, the crowned 
ambition, the conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood 
freely shed in winning it — should not one remember the tears 
tool Besides the lives of myriads of British men, conquering on 
a hundred fields, from Plassey to Meanee, and bathing them cruore 
nostro : think of the women, and the tribute which they perforce 
must pay to those victorious achievements. Scarce a soldier goes 
to yonder shores but leaves a home and grief in it behind him. 
The lords of the subject province find wives there ; but their chil- 
dren cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to 
the shore, and part from them. The family must be broken up. 
Keep the flow T ers of your home beyond a certain time, and the 
sickening buds wither and die. In America it is from the breast 
of a poor slave that a child is taken ; in India it is from the wife, 
and from under the palace, of a splendid proconsul. 

The experience of this grief made Newcome’s naturally kind 
heart only the more tender, and hence he had a weakness for chil- 
dren which made him the laughing-stock of old maids, old bachelors, 
and sensible persons; but the darling of all nurseries, to whose 
little inhabitants he was uniformly kind : were they the Collectors’ 
progeny in their palanquins, or the Sergeants’ children tumbling 
about the cantonment, or the dusky little heathens in the huts of 
his servants round his gate. 


54 - 


THE NEWCOMES 


It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are 
more fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of 
the sun kindles flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would 
probably beat quite coolly in their native air : else why should 
Miss Brown be engaged ten days after her landing at Calcutta? 
or why should Miss Smith have half-a-dozen proposals before she 
has been a week at the station ? And it is not only bachelors on 
whom the young ladies confer their affections ; they will take 
widowers without any difficulty : and a man so generally liked 
as Major Newcome, with such a good character, with a private 
fortune of his own, so chivalrous, generous, good-looking, eligible 
in a word, you may be sure would have found a wife easily enough, 
had he any mind for replacing the late Mrs. Casey. 

The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or com- 
panion, with whom he shared his lodgings ; and from many jocular 
remarks of this latter gentleman (who loved good jokes and uttered 
not a few) I could gather that the honest widower Colonel New- 
come had been often tempted to alter his condition, and that the 
Indian ladies had tried numberless attacks upon his bereaved heart, 
and devised endless schemes of carrying it by assault, treason, or 
other mode of capture. Mrs. Casey (his defunct wife) had overcome 
it by sheer pity and helplessness. He had found her so friendless, 
that he took her into the vacant place, and installed her there as he 
would have received a traveller into his bungalow. He divided his 
meal with her, and made her welcome to his best. “ I believe 
Tom Newcome married her,” sly Mr. Binnie used to say, “ in order 
that he might have permission to pay her milliner’s bills ; ” and 
in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A 
feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, 
hung over the mantelpiece of the Colonel’s bedchamber, where I 
have often seen that work of art ; and subsequently, when he and 
Mr. Binnie took a house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom 
a companion portrait to the miniature — that of the Colonel’s prede- 
cessor, Jack Casey, who, in life, used to fling plates at his Emma’s 
head, and who perished from a fatal attachment to the bottle. I 
am inclined to think that Colonel Newcome was not much cast 
down by the loss of his wife, and that they lived but indifferently 
together. Clive used to say in his artless way that his father 
scarcely ever mentioned his mother’s name ; and no doubt the 
union was not happy, although Newcome continued piously to 
acknowledge it, long after death had brought it to a termination, 
by constant benefactions and remembrances to the departed lady’s 
kindred. 

Those widows or virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma’s place 


THE NEWCOMES 


55 


found the door of Newcome’s heart fast and barred, and assailed it 
in vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as 
the Colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life 
one harmonious duet with him ; but she played her most brilliant 
sonatas and variations in vain ; and, as everybody knows, sub- 
sequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant 
Hodgkin’s house, whose name she now bears. The lovely widow 
Wilkins, with two darling little children, stopped at Newcome’s 
hospitable house, on her way to Calcutta ; and it was thought she 
might never leave it ; but her kind host, as was his wont, crammed 
her children with presents and good things, consoled and entertained 
the fair widow, and one morning, after she had remained three 
months at the Station, the Colonel’s palanquins and bearers made 
their appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping, as a 
widow should. Why did she abuse Newcome ever after at 
Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and wherever she went, calling him 
selfish, pompous, Quixotic, and a Bahawder 1 I could mention half- 
a-dozen other names of ladies of most respectable families connected 
with Leadenhall Street, who, according to Colonel Newcome’s chum 
— that wicked Mr. Binnie — had all conspired more or less to give 
Clive Newcome a stepmother. 

But he had had an unlucky experience in his own case ; and 
thought within himself, “No, I won’t give Clive a stepmother. 
As Heaven has taken his own mother from him, why, I must try 
to be father and mother too to the lad.” He kept the child as 
long as ever the climate would allow of his remaining, and then 
sent him home. Then his aim was to save money for the youngster. 
He was of a nature so uncontrollably generous, that to be sure he 
spent five rupees where another would save them, and make a fine 
show besides; but it is not a man’s gifts or hospitalities that 
generally injure his fortune. It is on themselves that prodigals 
spend most. And as Newcome had no personal extravagances, 
and the smallest ^selfish wants ; could live almost as frugally as a 
Hindoo ; kept his horses not to race but to ride ; wore his old 
clothes and uniforms until they were the laughter of his regiment ; 
did not care for show, and had no longer an extravagant wife ; he 
managed to lay by considerably out of his liberal allowances, and 
to find himself and Clive growing richer every year. 

“ When Clive has had five or six years at school ” — that was 
his scheme — “ he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much 
classical learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then 
I will go to England, and we will pass three or four years together, 
in which he will learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like 
me. I shall be his pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make 


56 


THE NEWCOMES 


up for lost time. I know there is nothing like a knowledge of the 
classics to give a man good breeding — Ingenuas didicisse Jideliter 
artes emollunt mores , nec sinuisse feros. I shall be able to help him 
with my knowledge of the world, and to keep him out of the way 
of sharpers and a pack of rogues who commonly infest young men. 
I will make myself his companion, and pretend to no superiority ; 
for, indeed, isn’t he my superior *? Of course he is, with his advan- 
tages. He hasn’t been an idle young scamp as I was. And we 
will travel together, first through England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
for every man should know his own country, and then we will make 
the grand tour. Then, by the time he is eighteen, he will be able 
to choose his profession. He can go into the army, and emulate 
the glorious man after whom I named him ; or if he prefers the 
Church, or the law, they are open to him'; and when he goes to the 
university, by which time I shall be, in all probability, a major- 
general, I can come back to India for a few years, and return by 
the time he has a wife and a home for his old father ; or if I die, 
I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left with 
the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of his 
old father.” 

Such were the plans of our kind schemer. How fondly he 
dwelt on them, how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy ! 
How he read books of travels and looked over the maps of Europe ! 
and said, “ Rome, sir, glorious Rome ; it won’t be very long, Major, 
before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope’s toe. 
We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over the Simplon, 
the work of the great Napoleon. By Jove, sir, think of the Turks 
before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of ’em off the 
face of the earth ! How my boy will rejoice in the picture-galleries 
there, and in Prince Eugene’s prints ! You know, I suppose, that 
Prince Eugene, one of the greatest generals in the world, was also 
one of the greatest lovers of the fine arts. Ingenuas didicisse , hey, 
Doctor 1 ? you know the rest, — emollunt mores nec ” 

“ Emollunt mores ! Colonel,” says Doctor McTaggart, who, 
perhaps, was too canny to correct the commanding officer’s Latin. 
“ Don’t ye noo that Prence Eugene was about as savage a Turk as 
iver was ? Have ye niver rad the mimores of the Prants de Leen 1 ” 

“ Well, he was a great cavalry officer,” answers the Colonel, 
“and he left a great collection of prints — that you know. How 
Clive will delight in them ! The boy’s talent for drawing is wonder- 
ful, sir, wonderful. He sent me a picture of our old school — the 
very actual thing, sir ; the cloisters, the school, the head gown-boy 
going in with the rods, and the Doctor himself. It would make 
you die of laughing ! ” 


THE NEWCOMES 


57 


He regaled the ladies of the regiment with Clive’s letters, and 
those of Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. 
He even bored some of his bearers with this prattle ; and sporting 
young men would give or take odds that the Colonel would mention 
Clive’s name, once before five minutes, three times in ten minutes, 
twenty-five times in the course of dinner, and so on. But they who 
laughed at the Colonel laughed very kindly ; and everybody who 
knew him loved him ; everybody that is, who loved modesty, and 
generosity, and honour. 

At last the happy time came for which the kind father had been 
longing more passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or school- 
boy for holiday. Colonel Newcome has taken leave of his regi- 
ment, leaving Major Tomkinson, nothing loth, in command. He 
has travelled to Calcutta ; and the Commander-in-Chief, in general 
orders, has announced that, in giving to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas 
Newcome, C.B., of the Bengal Cavalry, leave for the first time, 
after no less than thirty-four years’ absence from home, “he (Sir 
George Hustler) cannot refrain from expressing his sense of the 
great and meritorious services of this most distinguished officer, who 
has left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline and effi- 
ciency.’ And now the ship has sailed, the voyage is over, and once 
more, after so many long years, the honest soldier’s foot is on his 
native shore. 


CHAPTER VI 


NEWCOME BROTHERS 

B ESIDES his own boy, whom he worshipped, this kind Colonel 
had a score, at least, of adopted children, to whom he chose 
to stand in the light of a father. He was for ever whirling 
away in post-chaises to this school and that, to see Jack Brown’s 
boys, of the Cavalry ; or, Mrs. Smith’s girls, of the Civil Service ; 
or poor Tom Hicks’s orphan, who had nobody to look after him now 
that the cholera had carried off Tom, and his wife too. On board 
the ship in which he returned from Calcutta were a dozen of little 
children, of both sexes, some of whom he actually escorted to their 
friends before he visited his own ; and though his heart was long- 
ing for his boy at Grey Friars. The children at the schools seen, 
and largely rewarded out of his bounty (his loose white trousers 
had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver, which he 
jingled when he was not pulling his mustachios — to see the way 
in which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy 
again) ; and when he had visited Miss Pinkerton’s establishment, 
or Doctor Ramshorn’s adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen 
little Tom Davis or little Fanny Holmes, the honest fellow would 
come home and write off straightway a long letter to Tom’s or 
Fanny’s parents, far away in the Indian country, whose hearts he 
made happy by his accounts of their children, as he had delighted 
the children themselves by his affection and bounty. All the apple 
and orange women (especially such as had babies as well as lollipops 
at their stalls), all the street-sweepers on the road between Nerot’s 
and the Oriental, knew him, and were his pensioners. His brothers 
in Threadneedle Street cast up their eyes at the cheques which 
he drew. 

One of the little people of whom the kind Newcome had taken 
charge luckily dwelt near Portsmouth ; and when the faithful 
Colonel consigned Miss Fipps to her grandmother, Mrs. Admiral 
Fipps, at Southampton, Miss Fipps clung to her guardian, and 
with tears and howls was torn away from him. Not until her 
maiden aunts had consoled her with strawberries, which she never 
before had tasted, was the little Indian comforted for the departure 


THE NEWCOMES 


59 


of her dear Colonel. Master Cox, Tom Cox’s boy, of the Native 
Infantry, had to he carried asleep from the “ George ” to the mail 
that night. Master Cox woke up at the dawn wondering, as the 
coach passed through the pleasant green roads of Bromley. The 
good gentleman consigned the little chap to his uncle, Doctor Cox, 
Bloomsbury Square, before he went to his own quarters, and then 
on the errand on which his fond heart was bent. 

He had written to his brothers from Portsmouth, announcing 
his arrival, and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. 
The letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and 
one buttered roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore 
other boys, boarders of the same house with our young friend. 
How the lad’s face must have flushed, and his eyes brightened, 
when he read the news ! When the master of the house, the Rev. 
Mr. Hopkinson, came into the long-room, with a good-natured 
face, and said, “ Newcome, you’re wanted,” he knows who is come. 
He does not heed that notorious bruiser, old Hodge, who roars out, 
“ Confound you, Newcome : I’ll give it you for upsetting your tea 
over my new trousers.” He runs to the room where the stranger 
is waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon 
that scene. 

If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any 
in that school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been 
just as well pleased, and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces ; 
but, in truth, in looks and manners he was everything which his 
parent could desire ; and I hope the artist who illustrates this work 
will take care to do justice to his portrait. Mr. Clive himself, 
let that painter be assured, will not be too well pleased if his 
countenance and figure do not receive proper attention. He is not 
yet endowed with those splendid mustachios and whiskers which 
he has himself subsequently depicted, but he is the picture of health, 
strength, activity, and good-humour. He has a good forehead, 
shaded with a quantity of waving light hair ; a complexion which 
ladies might envy ; a mouth which seems accustomed to laughing ; 
and a pair of blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence and frank 
kindness. No wonder the pleased father cannot refrain from looking 
at him. He is, in a word, just such a youth as has a right to be 
the hero of a novel. 

The bell rings for second school, and Mr. Hopkinson, arrayed in 
cap and gown, comes in to shake Colonel Newcome by the hand, and 
to say he supposes it’s to be a holiday for Newcome that day. He 
does not say a word about Clive’s scrape of the day before, and 
that awful row in the bedrooms, where the lad and three others were 
discovered making a supper off a pork-pie and two bottles of prime 


6o 


THE NEWCOMES 


old port from the Red Cow public-house in Grey Friars Lane. 
When the bell has done ringing, and all these busy little bees have 
swarmed into their hive, there is a solitude in the place. The 
Colonel and his son walk the playground together, that gravelly 
flat, as destitute of herbage as the Arabian desert, but, nevertheless, 
in the language of the place, called the green. They walk the 
green, and they pace the cloisters, and Clive shows his father his 
own name of Thomas Newcome carved upon one of the arches forty 
years ago. As they talk, the boy gives sidelong glances at his new 
friend, and wonders at the Colonel’s loose trousers, long mustachios, 
and yellow face. He looks very odd, Clive thinks, very odd and 
very kind, and he looks like a gentleman, every inch of him : — not like 
Martin’s father, who came to see his son lately in highlows, and 
a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the boys for 
a scramble. He bursts out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous 
idea of a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers. 

And now, enjoining the boy to be ready against his return (and 
you may be sure Mr. Clive was on the look-out long before his sire 
appeared), the Colonel whirled away in his cab to the City to 
shake hands with his brothers, whom he had not seen since they 
were demure little men in blue jackets, under charge of a serious 
tutor. 

He rushed through the clerks and the banking-house, he broke 
into the parlour where the lords of the establishment were seated. 
He astonished those trim quiet gentlemen by the warmth of his 
greeting, by the vigour of his hand-shake, and the loud high tones 
of his voice, which penetrated the glass walls of the parlour, and 
might actually be heard by the busy clerks in the hall without. He 
knew Brian from Hobson at once — that unlucky little accident in 
the go-cart having left its mark for ever on the nose of Sir Brian 
Newcome, the elder of the twins. Sir Brian had a bald head and 
light hair, a short whisker cut to his cheek, a buff waistcoat, very 
neat boots and hands. He looked like the “ Portrait of a Gentle- 
man ” at the Exhibition, as the worthy is represented : dignified 
in attitude, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike, sitting at a table 
unsealing letters, with a despatch-box and a silver inkstand before 
him, a column and a scarlet curtain behind, and a park in the 
distance, with a great thunderstorm lowering in the sky. Such a 
portrait, in fact, hangs over the great sideboard at Newcome to this 
day, and above the three great silver waiters which the gratitude of 
as many Companies has presented to their respected director and 
chairman. 

In face Hobson Newcome, Esquire, was like his elder brother, 
but was more portly in person. He allowed his red whiskers to 


THE NEWCOMES 


61 


grow wherever nature had planted them, on his cheeks and under 
his chin. He wore thick shoes with nails in them, or natty round- 
toed boots, with tight trousers and a single strap. He affected the 
country gentleman in his appearance. His hat had a broad brim, 
and the ample pockets of his cutaway coat were never destitute of 
agricultural produce, samples of beans or corn, which he used to 
bite and chew even on ’Change, or a whip-lash, or balls for horses : 
in fine, he was a good old country gentleman. If it was fine in 
Threadneedle Street, he would say it was good weather for the hay ; 
if it rained, the country wanted rain ; if it was frosty, “No hunting 
to-day, Tomkins, my boy,” and so forth. As he rode from Bryan- 
stone Square to the City you would take him — and he was pleased 
to be so taken — for a jolly country squire. He was a better man 
of business than his more solemn and stately brother, at whom he 
laughed in his jocular way; and he said rightly, that a gentle- 
man must get up very early in the morning who wanted to take 
him in. 

The Colonel breaks into the sanctum of these worthy gentlemen ; 
and each receives him in a manner consonant with his peculiar 
nature. Sir Brian regretted that Lady Ann was away from London, 
being at Brighton with the children, who were all ill of the measles. 
Hobson said, “ Maria can’t treat you to such good company as my 
Lady could give you ; but when will you take a day and come and 
dine with us 1 ? Let’s see, to-day’s Wednesday; to-morrow we’ve a 
party. No, we’re engaged.” He meant that his table was full, and 
that he did not care to crowd it ; but there was no use in impart- 
ing this circumstance to the Colonel. “ Friday we dine at Judge 
Budge’s — queer name, Judge Budge, ain’t it % Saturday, I’m going 
down to Marble Head, to look after the hay. Come on Monday, 
Tom, and I’ll introduce you to the missus and the young uns.” 

“ I will bring Clive,” says Colonel Newcome, rather disturbed at 
this reception. “After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind 
to him.” 

“No, hang it, don’t bring boys ; there’s no good in boys ; they 
stop the talk downstairs, and the ladies don’t want ’em in the 
drawing-room. Send him to dine with the children on Sunday, if 
you like, and come along down with me to Marble Head, and I’ll 
show you such a crop of hay as will make your eyes open. Are 
you fond of farming 1 ?” • 

“ I have not seen my boy for years,” says the Colonel ; “I had 
rather pass Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some 
day we will go to Marble Head together.” 

“ Well, an offer’s an offer. I don’t know any pleasanter thing 
than getting out of this confounded City and smelling the hedges, 


62 


THE NEWCOMES 


and looking at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in 
quiet.” And his own tastes being thus agricultural, the worthy 
gentleman thought that everybody else must delight in the same 
recreation. 

“In the winter, I hope we shall see you at Newcome,” says 
the elder brother, blandly smiling. “I can’t give you any tiger- 
shooting, but I’ll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants 
in our jungle,” and he laughed very gently at this mild sally. 

The Colonel gave him a queer look. “ I shall be at Newcome 
before the winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days 
are over.” 

“ Indeed ! ” says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. 
“You are going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe 
the Newcomes were there before the Conqueror. It was but a 
village in our grandfather’s time, and it is an immense flourishing 
town now, for which I hope to get — I expect to get — a charter.” 

“Do you?” says the Colonel. “I am going down there to 
see a relation.” 

“ A relation ! What relatives have we there ? ” cries the 
Baronet. “My children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, 
this is your uncle Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great plea- 
sure, brother, in introducing you to my eldest son.” 

A fair-haired yoimg gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed 
in the very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture 
in the parlour, and returned Colonel Newcome’s greeting with a 
smiling acknowledgment of his own. “ Very happy to see you, I’m 
sure,” said the young man. “You find London very much changed 
since you were here? Very good time to come — the very full of 
the season.” 

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange re- 
ception. Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation 
asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to 
shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young sprig 
who patronised him, and vouchsafed to ask him whether he found 
London was changed. 

“ I don’t know whether it’s changed,” says the Colonel, biting 
his nails ; “ I know it’s not what I expected to find it.” 

“To-day it’s really as hot as I should think it must be in 
India,” says young Mr. Barnes Newcome. 

“ Hot ! ” says the Colonel, with a grin. “ It seems to me you 
are all cool enough here.” 

“ Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir,” says Barnes, turn- 
ing round to his father. “Don’t you remember when he came 
home from Bombay? I recollect his saying, at Lady Feather- 


THE NEWCOMES 


63 


stone’s, one dooced hot night, as it seemed to us ; I recklect his 
saying that he felt quite cold. Did you know him in India, 
Colonel Newcome? He’s liked at the Horse Guards, but he’s 
hated in his regiment.” 

Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate 
fate of Sir Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised 
by that distinguished cavalry officer. 

“My brother says he’s going to Newcome, Barnes, next week,” 
said the Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting 
to the newly-arrived Colonel. “ He was saying so just when you 
came in, and I was asking him what took him there ? ” 

“Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason 1 ?” says the Colonel. 

“ Really, I never did,” the Baronet answered. 

“Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don’t think I ever 
did,” said the young man. 

“Well, that’s a pity too,” the Colonel said, with a sneer. 
“Mrs. Mason is a relation of yours — at least by marriage. She 
is my aunt or cousin — I used to call her aunt, and she and my 
father and mother all worked in the same mill at Newcome 
together.” 

“ I remember — God bless my soul — I remember now ! ” cries 
the Baronet. “We pay her forty pound a year on your account — 
don’t you know, brother? Look to Colonel Newcome’s account — 
I recollect the name quite well. But I thought she had been 
your nurse, and — and an old servant of my father’s.” 

“ So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father’s,” 
answered the Colonel. “ But she was my mother’s cousin too ; 
and very lucky was my mother to have such a servant, or to have 
a servant at all. There is not in the whole world a more faith- 
ful creature or a better woman.” 

Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother’s perplexity, and to see, 
when the Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down some- 
times. “I am sure it does you very great credit,” gasped the 
courtly head of the firm, “to remember a — a humble friend and 
connection of our father’s so well.” 

“I think, brother, you might have recollected her too,” the 
Colonel growled out. His face was blushing ; he was quite angry 
and hurt at what seemed to him Sir Brian’s hardness of heart. 

“ Pardon me if I don’t see the necessity,” said Sir Brian. “ I 
have no relationship with Mrs. Mason, and do not remember ever 
having seen her. Can I do anything for you, brother ? Can I be 
useful to you in any way? Pray command me and Barnes here, 
who, after City hours, will be delighted if he can be serviceable to 
you — I am nailed to this counter all the morning, and to the House 


THE NEWCOMES 


64 * 

of Commons all night ; — I will be with you in one moment, Mr. 
Quilter. Good-bye, my dear Colonel. How well India has agreed 
with you ! how young you look ! the hot winds are nothing to what 
we endure in Parliament. Hobson,” in a low voice, “you saw 
about that hm — that power of attorney — and hm and hm will call 
here at twelve about that hm. I am sorry I must say good-bye — 
it seems so hard after not meeting for so many years.” 

“ Very,” says the Colonel. 

“ Mind and send for me whenever you want me, now 7 .” 

“ Oh, of course,” said the elder brother, and thought when will 
that ever be ! 

“Lady Ann will be too delighted at hearing of your arrival. 
Give my love to Clive — a remarkable fine boy, Clive — good morn- 
ing : ” and the Baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently 
be seen alongside of Mr. Quilter’s confidential grey poll, both of 
their faces turned into an immense ledger. 

Mr. Hobson accompanied the Colonel to the door, and shook 
him cordially by the hand as he got into his cab. The man asked 
whither he should drive 1 ? and poor Newcome hardly knew 7 where 
he was or whither he should go. “ Drive ! a — oh — ah — damme, 
drive me anywhere away from this place ! ” was all he could say ; 
and very likely the cabman thought he was a disappointed debtor 
who had asked in vain to renew a bill. In fact, Thomas Newcome 
had overdrawn his little account. There was no such balance of 
affection in that bank of his brothers, as the simple creature had 
expected to find there. 

When he was gone, Sir Brian went back to his parlour, where 
sat young Barnes perusing the paper. “My revered uncle seems 
to have brought back a quantity of cayenne pepper from India, sir,” 
he said to his father. 

“ He seems a very kind-hearted simple man,” the Baronet said : 
“eccentric, but he has been more than thirty years away from 
home. Of course you will call upon him to-morrow morning. Do 
everything you can to make him comfortable. Whom w r ould he 
like to meet at dinner 1 I will ask some of the Direction. Ask 
him, Barries, for next Wednesday or Saturday — no ; Saturday I dine 
with the Speaker. But see that every attention is paid him.” 

“Does he intend to have our relation up to town, sir? I 
should like to meet Mrs. Mason of all things. A venerable washer- 
woman, I dare say, or perhaps keeps a public-house,” simpered out 
young Barnes. 

“ Silence, Barnes ; you jest at everything, you young men do — 
you do. Colonel Newcome’s affection for his old nurse does him the 
greatest honour,” said the Baronet, who really meant what he said. 


THE NEWCOMES 


65 


“ And I hope my mother will have her to stay a good deal* at 
Newcome. I’m sure she must have been a washerwoman, and 
mangled my uncle in early life. His costume struck me with 
respectful astonishment. He disdains the use of straps to his 
trousers, and is seemingly unacquainted with gloves. If he had 
died in India, would my late aunt have had to perish on a funeral 
pile?” Here Mr. Quilter, entering with a heap of bills, put an 
end to these sarcastic remarks, and young Newcome, applying 
himself to his business (of which he was a perfect master), forgot 
about his uncle till after City hours, when he entertained some 
young gentlemen at Bays’s Club with an account of his newly- 
arrived relative. 

Towards the City, whither he wended his way whatever had 
been the ball or the dissipation of the night before, young Barnes 
Newcome might be seen walking every morning, resolutely and 
swiftly, with his neat umbrella. As he passed Charing Cross on 
his way westwards, his little boots trailed slowly over the pavement, 
his head hung languid (bending lower still, and smiling with faded 
sweetness as he doffed his hat and saluted a passing carriage), his 
umbrella trailed after him. Not a dandy on all the Pall Mall pave- 
ment seemed to have less to do than he. 

Heavyside, a large young officer of the household troops, old 
Sir Thomas de Boots, and Horace Fogey, whom every one knows, 
are in the window of Bays’s, yawning as widely as that window 
itself. Horses, under the charge of men in red jackets, are pacing 
up and down St. James’s Street. Cabmen on the stand are re- 
galing with beer. Gentlemen with grooms behind them pass 
towards the Park. Great dowager barouches roll along, em- 
blazoned with coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. 
Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and 
show their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and 
smoke and spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches 
along the pavement. It is five o’clock, the noon in Pall Mall. 

“ Here’s little Newcome coming,” says Mr. Horace Fogey. 
“He and the muffin-man generally make their appearance in 
public together.” 

“Dashed little prig,” says Sir Thomas de Boots; “why the 
dash did they ever let him in here ? If I hadn’t been in India, 
by dash — he should have been blackballed twenty times over, by 
dash.” Only Sir Thomas used words far more terrific than dash ; 
for this distinguished cavalry officer swore very freely. 

“He amuses me; he’s such a mischievous little devil,” says 
good-natured Charley Heavyside. 

“ It takes very little to amuse you,” remarks Fogey. 

8 E 


66 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ You don’t, Fogey,” answers Charley. “ I know every one 
of your demd old stories, that are as old as my grandmother. 
How-dy-do, Barney'?” (Enter Barnes Newcome.) “How are 
the Three per Cents., you little beggar? I wish you’d do me a 
bit of stiff; and just tell your father if I may overdraw my 
account, I’ll vote with him — hanged if I don’t.” 

Barnes orders absinthe-and-water, and drinks : Heavyside re- 
suming his elegant raillery. “ I say, Barney, your name’s Barney, 
and you’re a banker. You must be a little Jew, hey? Yell, how 
mosh vill you do my little pill for ? ” 

“Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside,” says 
the young man with a languid air. “ That’s your place : you’re 
returned for it.” (Captain the Honourable Charles Heavyside is 
a member of the legislature, and eminent in the House for asinine 
imitations, which delight his own, and confuse the other party.) 
“ Don’t bray here. I hate the shop out of shop hours.” 

“ Dash the little puppy,” growls Sir de Boots, swelling in his 
waistband. 

“What do they say about the Russians in the City?” says 
Horace Fogey, who has been in the diplomatic service. “ Has 
the fleet left Cronstadt, or has it not ? ” 

“How should I know?” asks Barney. “Ain’t it all in the 
evening paper ? ” 

“ That is very uncomfortable news from India, General,” 
resumes Fogey — “there’s Lady Doddington’s carriage, how well 
she looks — that movement of Runjeet Singh on Peshawur : that 
fleet on the Irrawaddy. It looks doocid queer, let me tell you, 
and Penguin is not the man to be Governor-General of India in 
a time of difficulty.” 

“And Hustler’s not the man to be Commander-in-Chief: 
dashder old fool never lived : a dashed old psalm-singing, blunder- 
ing old woman,” says Sir Thomas, who wanted the command 
himself. 

“ You ain’t in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas,” says Mr. 
Barnes ; “ quite the contrary.” In fact Sir de Boots in his youth 
used to sing with the Duke of York, and even against Captain 
Costigan, but was beaten by that superior Bacchanalian artist. 

Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you ? 
but wanting still to go to India again, and knowing how strong 
the Newcomes are in Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to 
be civil to the young cub, and swallows his wrath once more into 
his waistband. 

“I’ve got an uncle come home from India — upon my word I 
have,” says Barnes Newcome. “ That is why I am so exhausted. 





MR. BARNES NEWCOMB AT HIS CLUB. 
























. 































































































































• v 









































































































































THE NEWCOMES 


67 

I am going to buy him a pair of gloves, number fourteen — and I 
want a tailor for him — not a young man’s tailor. Fogey’s tailor 
rather. I’d take my father’s ; but he has all his things made in 
the country — all — in the borough, you know — he’s a public man.” 

“ Is Colonel Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, your uncle 1 ” 
asks Sir Thomas de Boots. 

“Yes; will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday 
week, Sir Thomas 1 and Fogey, you come : you know you like a 
good dinner. You don’t know anything against my uncle, do you, 
Sir Thomas ] Have I any Brahminical cousins % Need we be 
ashamed of him % ” 

“I tell you what, young man, if you were more like him it 
wouldn’t hurt you. He’s an odd man : they call him Don Quixote 
in India ; I suppose you’ve read ‘ Don Quixote.’ ” 

“Never heard of it, upon my word; and why do you wish I 
should be more like him 1 I don’t wish to be like him at all, thank 
you.” 

“ Why, because he is one of the bravest officers that ever lived,” 
roared out the old soldier. “ Because he’s one of the kindest fellows ; 
because he gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to 
be proud if he chose. That’s why, Mr. Newcome.” 

“ A topper for you, Barney, my boy,” remarks Charles Heavy- 
side, as the indignant General walks away gobbling and red. Barney 
calmly drinks the remains of his absinthe. 

“ I don’t know what that old muff means,” he says innocently, 
when he has finished his bitter draught. “ He’s always flying out 
at me, the old turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, 
the old idiot, and can no more play than an old baby. He pretends 
to teach me billiards, and I’ll give him fifteen in twenty and beat 
his old head off. Why do they let such fellows into clubs ? Let’s 
have a game at piquet till dinner, Heavyside 1 Hallo ! That’s my 
uncle, that tall man with the mustachios and the short trousers, 
walking with that boy of his. I dare say they are going to dine 
in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do, Nunky” — 
and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they sat 
at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived. 


CHAPTER VII 


IN WHICH MR. CLIVES SCHOOL-DAYS ARE OVER 

O UR good Colonel hadj luckily to look forward to a more 
pleasant meeting with his son, than that unfortunate inter- 
view with his other near relatives. 

He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by 
the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of 
Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a 
way which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. 
There was Cistercian Street, and the “ Red Cow ” of his youth : there 
was the quaint old Grey Friars Square, with its blackened trees 
and garden, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of the last 
century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine. 

Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the 
old Gothic building ; and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling 
over the quiet square, or passing from one dark arch to another. 
The boarding-houses of the school were situated in the square, hard 
by the more ancient buildings of the hospital. A great noise of 
shouting, crying, clapping forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass 
voices, poured out of the schoolboys’ windows : their life, bustle, 
and gaiety contrasted strangely with the quiet of those old men, 
creeping along in their black gowns under the ancient arches yonder, 
whose struggle of life was over, whose hope and noise and bustle 
had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas Newcome arrived 
at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys and the 
tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralise upon both, had not 
his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr. Hopkinson’s, or 
let us say at once Hopkey’s house, come jumping down the steps to 
greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best ; not one of those 
four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, 
or a neater boot. Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars, envied 
him as he walked away ; senior boys made remarks on Colonel 
Newcome’s loose clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands 
and unbrushed hat. The Colonel was smoking a cheroot as he 
walked ; and the gigantic Smith, the cock of the school, who 
happened to be looking majestically out of window, was pleased 


THE NEWCOMES 69 

to say that he thought Newcome’s governor was a fine manly- 
looking fellow. 

“ Tell me about your uncles, Clive,” said the Colonel, as they 
walked on arm-in-arm. 

“What about them, sir?” asks the boy. “I don’t think I 
know much.” 

“You have been to stay with them. You wrote about them. 
Were they kind to you?” 

“ Oh yes, I suppose they are very kind. They always tipped 
me : only, you know, when I go there I scarcely ever see them. 
Mr. Newcome asks me the oftenest — two or three times a quarter 
when he’s in town, and gives me a sovereign regular.” 

“ Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign,” says Clive’s 
father, laughing. 

The boy blushed rather. 

“Yes. When it’s time to go back to Smithfield on a Sunday 
night, I go into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it 
me; but he don’t speak to me much, you know, and I don’t care 
about going to Bryanstone Square, except for the tip — of course 
that’s important — because I am made to dine with the children, 
and they are quite little ones ; and a great cross French governess, 
who is always crying and shrieking after them, and finding fault 
with them. My uncle generally has his dinner-parties on Saturday, 
or goes out ; and aunt gives me ten shillings and sends me to the 
play ; that’s better fun than a dinner-party.” Here the lad blushed 
again. “ I used,” says he, “ when I was younger, to stand on 
the stairs and prig things out of the dishes when they came out 
from dinner, but I’m past that now. Maria (that’s my cousin) 
used to take the sweet things and give ’em to the governess. 
Fancy ! she used to put lumps of sugar into her pocket and eat 
them in the schoolroom ! Uncle Hobson don’t live in such good 
society as Uncle Newcome. You see, Aunt Hobson, she’s very 
kind, you know, and all that, but I don’t think she’s what you call 
comme il faut .” 

“ Why, how are you to judge ? ” asks the father, amused at the 
lad’s candid prattle, “ and where does the difference lie?” 

“ I can’t tell you what it is, or how it is,” the boy answered, 
“ only one can’t help seeing the difference. It isn’t rank and that ; 
only somehow there are some men gentlemen and some not, and 
some women ladies and some not. There’s Jones now, the fifth- 
form master, every man sees he's a gentleman, though he wears 
ever so old clothes; and there’s Mr. Brown, who oils his hair, 
and wears rings, and white chokers — my eyes ! such white chokers ! 
— and yet we call him the handsome snob ! And so about Aunt 


70 


THE NEWCOMES 


Maria, she’s very handsome, and she’s very finely dressed, only some- 
how she’s not — she’s not the ticket, you see.” 

“ Oh, she’s not the ticket ? ” says the Colonel, much amused. 

“ Well, what I mean is — but never mind,” says the boy. “ I 
can’t tell you what I mean. I don’t like to make fun of her, you 
know, for, after all, she is very kind to me ; but Aunt Ann is 
different, and it seems as if what she says is more natural; and 
though she has funny ways of her own too, yet somehow she looks 
grander,” — and here the lad laughed again. “ And do you know, I 
often think that as good a lady as Aunt Ann herself, is old Aunt 
Honeyman at Brighton — that is, in all essentials, you know 'l And 
she is not a bit ashamed of letting lodgings, or being poor herself, 
as sometimes I think some of our family ” 

“ I thought we were going to speak no ill of them,” says the 
Colonel, smiling. 

“Well, it only slipped out unawares,” says Clive, laughing; 
“but at Newcome when they go on about the Newcomes, and that 
great ass, Barnes Newcome, gives himself his airs, it makes me die 
of laughing. That time I went down to Newcome, I went to see 
old Aunt Sarah, and she told me everything, and showed me the 
room where my grandfather — you know ; and do you know I was a 
little hurt at first, for I thought we were swells till then. And 
when I came back to school, where perhaps I had been giving 
myself airs, and bragging about Newcome, why, you know, I 
thought it was right to tell the fellows.” 

“ That’s a man,” said the Colonel, with delight ; though had he 
said, “ That’s a boy,” he had spoken more correctly. Indeed, how 
many men do we know in the world without caring to know who 
their fathers were ? and how many more who wisely do not care to 
tell us 1 * “That’s a man,” cries the Colonel; “never be ashamed 
of your father, Clive.” 

“ Ashamed of my father ! ” says Clive, looking up to him, and 
walking on as proud as a peacock. “ I say,” the lad resumed, after 
a pause — 

“ Say what you say,” said the father. 

“Is that all true what’s in the Peerage — in the Baronetage, 
about Uncle Newcome and Newcome ; about the Newcome who was 
burned at Smithfield ; about the one that was at the battle of 
Bosworth ; and the old old Newcome who was bar — that is, who 
was surgeon to Edward the Confessor, and was killed at Hastings 1 
I am afraid it isn’t ; and yet I should like it to be true.” 

“I think every man would like to come of an ancient and 
honourable race,” said the Colonel, in his honest way. “ As you 
like your father to be an honourable man, why not your grandfather, 


THE NEWCOMES 


71 


and his ancestors before him ] But if we can’t inherit a good name, 
at least we can do our best to leave one, my boy ; and that is an 
ambition which, please God, you and I will both hold by.” 

With this simple talk the old and young gentlemen beguiled 
their way, until they came into the western quarter of the town, 
where the junior member of the firm of Newcome Brothers had his 
house — a handsome and roomy mansion in Bryanstone Square. 
Colonel Newcome was bent on paying a visit to his sister-in-law, 
and as he knocked at the door, where the pair were kept waiting 
some little time, he could remark through the opened windows of 
the dining-room, that a great table was laid and every preparation 
made for a feast. 

“My brother said he was engaged to dinner to-day,” said the 
Colonel. “ Does Mrs. Newcome give parties when he is away ] ” 

“She invites all the company,” answered Clive. “My uncle 
never asks any one without aunt’s leave.” 

The Colonel’s countenance fell. He has a great dinner, and 
does not ask his own brother ! Newcome thought. Why, if he had 
come to me in India with all his family, he might have stayed for a 
year, and I should have been offended if he had gone elsewhere. 

A hot menial, in a red waistcoat, came and opened the door ; 
and without waiting for preparatory queries, said, “Not at home.” 

“ It’s my father, John,” said Clive ; % “ my aunt will see Colonel 
Newcome.” 

“Missis not at home,” said the man. “Missis is gone in 
carriage. — Not at this door ! — Take them things down the area 
steps, young man ! ” bawls out the domestic. This latter speech 
was addressed to a pastrycook’s boy, with a large sugar temple and 
many conical papers containing delicacies for dessert. “Mind the 
hice is here in time ; or there’ll be a blow-up with your governor,” 
— and John struggled back, closing the door on the astonished 
Colonel. 

“ Upon my life, they actually shut the door in our faces,” said 
the poor gentleman. 

“ The man is very busy, sir. There’s a great dinner. I’m sure 
my aunt would not refuse you,” Clive interposed. “ She is very 
kind. I suppose it’s different here to what it is in India. There 
are the children in the square, — those are the girls, in blue, — that’s 
the French governess, the one with the mustachios and the yellow 
parasol. How d’ye do, Mary] How d’ye do, Fanny] This is my 
father — this is your uncle.” 

“ Mesdemoiselles ! Je vous defends de parler k qui que ce soit 
hors du Squar ! ” screams out the lady of the mustachios ; and she 
strode forward to call back her young charges. 


72 


THE NEWCOMES 


The Colonel addressed her in very good French. “ I hope you 
will permit me to make acquaintance with my nieces,” he said, 
“ and with their instructress, of whom my son has given me such a 
favourable account.” 

“ Hem ! ” said Mademoiselle Lebrun, remembering the last fight 
she and Clive had had together, and a portrait of herself (with 
enormous whiskers) which the young scapegrace had drawn. 
“ Monsieur is very good. But one cannot too early inculcate retenue 
and decorum to young ladies in a country where demoiselles seem 
for ever to forget that they are young ladies of condition. I am 
forced to keep the eyes of lynx upon these young persons, otherwise 
Heaven knows what would come to them. Only yesterday, my 
back is turned for a moment, I cast my eyes on a book, having 
but little time for literature, monsieur — for literature, which I 
adore — when a cry makes itself to hear. I turn myself, and what 
do I see? Mesdemoiselles your nieces playing at criquette, with 
the Messieurs Smees — sons of Doctor Smees — young galopins, 
monsieur ! ” All this was shrieked with immense volubility and 
many actions of the hand and parasol across the square-railings to 
the amused Colonel, at whom the little girls peered through 
the bars. 

“ Well, my dears, I should like to have a game at cricket with 
you too,” says the kind gentleman, reaching them each a brown 
hand. 

“ You, monsieur, c’est different — a man of your age ! Salute 
monsieur your uncle, mesdemoiselles. You conceive, monsieur, that 
I also must be cautious when I speak to a man so distinguished 
in a public squar.” And she cast down her great eyes, and hid 
those radiant orbs from the Colonel. 

Meanwhile, Colonel Newcome, indifferent to the direction which 
Miss Lebrun’s eyes took, whether towards his hat or his boots, 
was surveying his little nieces with that kind expression which his 
face always wore when it was turned towards children. “Have 
you heard of your uncle iu India ? ” he asked them. 

“No,” says Maria. 

“Yes,” says Fanny. “You know Mademoiselle said” (Made- 
moiselle at this moment was twittering her fingers, and, as it were, 
kissing them in the direction of a grand barouche that was advan- 
cing along the square) — “ you know Mademoiselle said that if we 
were 7neckantes we should be sent to our uncle in India. I think 
I should like to go with you.” 

“ Oh you silly child ! ” cries Maria. 

“ Yes, I should, if Clive went too,” says little Fanny. 

“ Behold madam, who arrives from her promenade ! ” Miss 


THE NEWCOMES 7 3 

Lebrun exclaimed; and, turning round, Colonel Newcome had the 
satisfaction of beholding, for the first time, his sister-in-law. 

A stout lady, with fair hair and a fine bonnet and pelisse (who 
knows what were the fine bonnets and pelisses of the year 183-?), 
was reclining in the barouche, the scarlet-plush integuments of her 
domestics blazing before and behind her. A pretty little foot was 
on the cushion opposite to her; feathers waved in her bonnet; a 
book was in her lap ; an oval portrait of a gentleman reposed on 
her voluminous bosom. She wore another picture of two darling 
heads, with pink cheeks and golden hair, on one of her wrists, 
with many more chains, bracelets, bangles, and nicknacks. A 
pair of dirty gloves marred the splendour of this appearance; a 
heap of books from the library strewed the back seat of the carriage, 
and showed that her habits were literary. Springing down from 
his station behind his mistress, a youth clad in nether garments of 
red sammit discharged thunderclaps on the door of Mrs. Newcome’s 
house, announcing to the whole square that his mistress had returned 
to her abode. 

Clive, with a queer twinkle of his eyes, ran towards his aunt. 
She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. 
“ What, you, Clive ? ” she said. “ How come you away from school 
of a Thursday, sir ? ” 

“ It is a holiday,” says he. “ My father is come ; and he is 
come to see you.” 

She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and 
majestic satisfaction. “ Indeed, Clive ! ” she was good enough to 
exclaim, and with an air which seemed to say, “ Let him come up 
and be presented to me.” The honest gentleman stepped forward 
and took off his hat and bowed, and stood bareheaded. She 
surveyed him blandly, and with infinite grace put forward one of 
the pudgy little hands in one of the dirty gloves. Can you fancy 
a twopenny-halfpenny baroness of King Francis’s time patronising 
Bayard ? Can you imagine Queen Guinevere’s lady’s-maid’s lady’s- 
maid being affable to Sir Lancelot ? I protest there is nothing like 
the virtue of Englishwomen. 

“You have only arrived to-day, and you came to see me? 
That was very kind. N’est-ce pas que c’^tait bong de Moseer le 
Colonel, Mademoiselle? Madamaselle Lebrun le Colonel Newcome, 
mong frhre.” (In a whisper, “My children’s governess and my 
friend, a most superior woman.”) “Was it not kind of Colonel 
Newcome to come to see me? Have you had a pleasant voyage? 
Did you come by St. Helena? Oh, how I envy you seeing the 
tomb of that great man ! Nous parlong de Napolleong, Made- 
moiselle, dong voter pkre a 6t6 le g&^ral favvory.” 


74 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ 0 Dieu ! que n’ai-je pu le voir,” interjaculates mademoiselle. 
“ Lui dont parle l’univers, dont mon pkre m’a si sou vent parle ! ” 
but this remark passes quite unnoticed by mademoiselle’s friend, 
who continues — 

“ Clive, donnez-moi voter bras. These are two of my girls. 
My boys are at school. I shall be so glad to introduce them to 
their uncle. This naughty boy might never have seen you, but 
that we took him home to Marble Head, after the scarlet fever, 
and made him well, didn’t we, Clive ? And we are all very fond 
of him, and you must not be jealous of his love for his aunt. We 
feel that we quite know you through him, and we know that you 
know us, and we hope you will like us. Do you think your papa 
will like us, Clive? Or, perhaps, you will like Lady Ann best? 
Yes; you have been to her first, of course? Not been? Oh! 
because she is not in town.” Leaning fondly on the arm of Clive, 
mademoiselle standing grouped with the children hard by, while 
John, with his hat off, stood at the opened door, Mrs. Newcome 
slowly uttered the above remarkable remarks to the Colonel, on 
the threshold of her house, which she never asked him to pass. 

“ If you will come in to us at about ten this evening,” she then 
said, “you will find some men, not undistinguished, who honour 
me of an evening. Perhaps they will be interesting to you, Colonel 
Newcome, as you are newly arrived in Europe. Not men of worldly 
rank, necessarily, although some of them are amongst the noblest 
of Europe. But my maxim is, that genius is an illustration, and 
merit is better than any pedigree. You have heard of Professor 
Bodgers? Count Poski? Doctor McGuffog, who is called in his 
native country the Ezekiel of Clackmannan? Mr. Shaloony, the 
great Irish patriot ? our papers have told you of him. These and 
some more have been good enough to promise me a visit to-night. 
A stranger coming to London could scarcely have a better oppor- 
tunity of seeing some of our great illustrations of science and 
literature. And you will meet our own family — not Sir Brian’s, 
who — who have other society and amusements — but mine. I hope 
Mr. Newcome and myself will never forget them. We have a few 
friends at dinner, and now I must go in and consult with Mrs. 
Hubbard, my housekeeper. Good-bye for the present. Mind, not 
later than ten, as Mr. Newcome must be up betimes in the morning, 
and our parties break up early. When Clive is a little older, I 
dare say we shall see him too. Good- bye ! ” And again the 
Colonel was favoured with a shake of the glove, and the lady and 
her suite sailed up the stair, and passed in at the door. 

She had not the faintest idea but that the hospitality which she 
was offering to her kinsman was of the most cordial and pleasant 


THE NEWCOMES 


75 


kind. She fancied everything she did was perfectly right and 
graceful. She invited her husband’s clerks to come through the 
rain at ten o’clock from Kentish Town j she asked artists to bring 
their sketch-books from Kensington, or luckless pianists to trudge 
with their music from Brompton. She rewarded them with a smile 
and a cup of tea, and thought they were made happy by her con- 
descension. If, after two or three of these delightful evenings, they 
ceased to attend her receptions, she shook her little flaxen head, 
and sadly intimated that Mr. A. was getting into bad courses, or 
feared that Mr. B. found merely intellectual parties too quiet for 
him. Else, what young man in his senses could refuse such enter- 
tainment and instruction % 


CHAPTER VIII 

MRS. NEWCOME AT HOME ( A SMALL EARLY PARTY ) 


T O push on in the crowd, every male or female struggler must 
use his or her shoulders. If a better place than yours 
presents itself just beyond your neighbour, elbow him and 
take it. Look how a steadily-purposed man or woman at court, at a 
ball, or exhibition, wherever there is a competition and a squeeze, gets 
the best place ; the nearest the sovereign, if bent on kissing the royal 
hand ; the closest to the grand stand, if minded to go to Ascot ; the 
best view and hearing of the Rev. Mr. Thumpington, when all the 
town is rushing to hear that exciting divine ; the largest quantity 
of ice, champagne and seltzer, cold p&t4, or other his or her favourite 
flesh-pot, if gluttonously minded, at a supper whence hundreds of 
people come empty away. A woman of the world will marry her 
daughter and have done with her, get her carriage, and be at home 
and asleep in bed ; whilst a timid mamma has still her girl in the 
nursery, or is beseeching the servants in the cloak-room to look for 
her shawls, with which some one else has whisked away an hour ago. 
What a man has to do in society is to assert himself. Is there a 
good place at table? Take it. At the Treasury or the Home 
Office ? Ask for it. Do you want to go to a party to which you 
are not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., 
ask everybody you know : you will be thought a bore ; but you will 
have your way. What matters if you are considered obtrusive, 
provided that you obtrude ? By pushing steadily, nine hundred and 
ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you. Only command 
persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number will obey. 
How well your money will have been laid out, 0 gentle reader, who 
purchase this ; and, taking the maxim to heart, follow it through 
life ! You may be sure of success. If your neighbour’s foot 
obstructs you, stamp on it ; and do you suppose he won’t take it 
away ? 

The proofs of the correctness of the above remarks I show in 
various members of the Newcome family. Here was a vulgar little 
woman, not clever nor pretty especially ; meeting Mr. Newcome 
casually, she ordered him to marry her, and he obeyed as he 


THE NEWCOMES 


77 


obeyed her in everything else which she chose to order through 
life. Meeting Colonel Newcome on the steps of her house, she 
orders him to come to her evening party ; and though he has not 
been to an evening party for five-and-thirty years — though he has 
not been to bed the night before— though he has no mufti coat except 
one sent him out by Messrs. Stultz to India in the year 1821 — 
he never once thinks of disobeying Mrs. Newcome’s order, but is 
actually at her door at five minutes past ten, having arrayed him- 
self, to the wonderment of Clive, and left the boy to talk to his 
friend and fellow-passenger, Mr. Binnie, who has just arrived from 
Portsmouth, who has dined with him, and who, by previous arrange- 
ment, has taken up his quarters at the same hotel. 

This Stultz coat, a blue swallow-tail, with yellow buttons, now 
wearing a tinge of their native copper, a very high velvet collar, on 
a level with the tips of the Captain’s ears, with a high waist, indi- 
cated by two lapelles, and a pair of buttons high up in the wearer’s 
back, a white waistcoat and scarlet under-waistcoat, and a pair of the 
never-failing duck trousers, complete Thomas Newcome’s costume, 
along with the white hat in which we have seen him in the morn- 
ing, and which was one of two dozen purchased by him some years 
since at public outcry, Burrumtollah. We have called him Captain 
purposely, while speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when 
the garment came out to him ; and having been in the habit of 
considering it a splendid coat for twelve years past, he has not the 
least idea of changing his opinion. 

Doctor McGuffog, Professor Bodgers, Count Poski, and all the 
lions present at Mrs. Newcome’s reunion that evening, were com- 
pletely eclipsed by Colonel Newcome. The worthy soul, who cared 
not the least about adorning himself, had a handsome diamond 
brooch of the year 1801 — given him by poor Jack Cutler, who w r as 
knocked over by his side at Argaum, and wore this ornament in his 
desk for a thousand days and nights at a time — in his shirt-frill, on 
such parade evenings as he considered Mrs. Newcome’s to be. The 
splendour of this jewel, and of his flashing buttons, caused all eyes 
to turn to him. There were many pairs of mustachios present : 
those of Professor Schnurr, a very corpulent martyr, just escaped 
from Spandau, and of Maximilien Tranchard, French exile and 
apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of 
vying in interest with Colonel Newcome’s. Polish chieftains were 
at this time so common in London, that nobody (except one noble 
Member for Marylebone, and, once a year, the Lord Mayor) took 
any interest in them. The general opinion was, that the stranger 
was the Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at Mivart’s the Morning 
Post had just announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious every other 


78 


THE NEWCOMES 


Wednesdays in Montagu Square are supposed by some to be rival 
entertainments to Mrs. Newcome’s alternate Thursdays in Bryan- 
stone Square, pinched her daughter Mira, engaged in a polyglot 
conversation with Herr Schnurr, Signor Carabossi, the guitarist, 
and Monsieur Pivier, the celebrated French chess-player, to point 
out the Boyar. Mira Miles wished she knew a little Moldavian, 
not so much that she might speak it, but that she might be heard 
to speak it. Mrs. Miles, who had not had the educational advan- 
tages of her daughter, simpered up with “ Madame Newcome pas 
ici — votre excellence nouvellement arrive — avez vous fait ung bong 
voyage? Je re9ois chez moi Mercredi prochaing; lonnure de vous 
voir — Madamasel Miles ma fille ; ” and Mira, now reinforcing her 
mamma, poured in a glib little oration in French, somewhat to the 
astonishment of the Colonel, who began to think, however, that 
perhaps French was the language of the polite world, into which 
he was now making his very first entree. 

Mrs. Newcome had left her place at the door of her drawing- 
room, to walk through her rooms with Rummun Loll, the celebrated 
Indian merchant, otherwise his Excellency Rummun Loll, otherwise 
his Highness Rummun Loll, the chief proprietor of the diamond 
mines in Golconda, with a claim of three millions and a half upon 
the East India Company — who smoked his hookah after dinner 
when the ladies were gone, and in whose honour (for his servants 
always brought a couple or more of hookahs with them) many English 
gentlemen made themselves sick, while trying to emulate the same 
practice. Mr. Newcome had been obliged to go to bed himself in 
consequence of the uncontrollable nausea produced by the chillum ; 
and Doctor McGuffog, in hopes of converting his Highness, had 
puffed his till he was as black in the face as the interesting Indian 
— and now, having hung on his arm — always in the dirty gloves — 
flirting a fan whilst his Excellency consumed betel out of a silver 
box ; and having promenaded him and his turban, and his shawls, 
and his kincob pelisse, and his lacquered moustache, and keen brown 
face and opal eyeballs, through her rooms, the hostess came back to 
her station at the drawing-room door. 

As soon as his Excellency saw the Colonel, whom he perfectly 
well knew, his Highness’s princely air was exchanged for one of the 
deepest humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before 
his eyes, and came creeping towards him submissively, to the won- 
derment of Mrs. Miles; who was yet more astonished when the 
Moldavian magnate exclaimed in perfectly good English, “What, 
Rummun, you here ? ” 

The Rummun, still bending and holding his hands before him, 
uttered a number of rapid sentences in the Hindustani language, 


THE NEWCOMES 


79 

which Colonel Newcome received twirling his mustachios with much 
hauteur. He turned on his heel rather abruptly, and began to 
speak to Mrs. Newcome, who smiled and thanked him for coming 
— on his first night after his return. 

The Colonel said, “ To whose house should he first come but to 
his brother’s?” How Mrs. Newcome wished she could have had 
room for him at dinner ! And there was room after all, for Mr. 
Shaloony was detained at the House. The most interesting conver- 
sation. The Indian Prince was so intelligent ! 

“ The Indian what ? ” asks Colonel Newcome. The heathen 
gentleman had gone off, and was seated by one of the handsomest 
young women in the room, whose fair fiice was turned towards him, 
whose blond ringlets touched his shoulder, and who was listening to 
him as eagerly as Desdemona listened to Othello. 

The Colonel’s rage was excited as he saw the Indian’s behaviour. 
He curled his mustachios up to his eyes in his wrath. “You don’t 
mean that that man calls himself a Prince? That a fellow who 
wouldn’t sit down in an officer’s presence is ...” 

“ How do you do, Mr. Honeyman ? — Eh, bong soir, monsieur. 
— You are very late, Mr. Pressly. — What, Barnes; is it possible 
that you do me the honour to come all the way from Mayfair to 
Marylebone. I thought you young men of fashion never crossed 
Oxford Street. Colonel Newcome, this is your nephew.” 

“How do you do, sir?” says Barnes, surveying the Colonel’s 
costume with inward wonder, but without the least outward 
manifestation of surprise. “I suppose you dined here to meet 
the black Prince ? I came to ask him and my uncle to meet you 
at dinner on Wednesday. Where’s my uncle, ma’am ? ” 

“Your uncle is gone to bed ill. He smoked one of those 
hookahs which the Prince brings, and it has made him very unwell 
indeed, Barnes. How is Lady Ann? Is Lord Kew in London? 
Is your sister better for Brighton air? I see your cousin is 
appointed Secretary of Legation. Have you good accounts of 
your aunt Lady Fanny ? ” 

“ Lady Fanny is as well as can be expected, and the baby is 
going on perfectly well, thank you,” Barnes said dryly; and his 
aunt, obstinately gracious with him, turned away to some other 
new-comer. 

“ It’s interesting, isn’t it, sir,” says Barnes, turning to the 
Colonel, “ to see such union • in families ? Whenever I come here, 
my aunt trots out all my relations ; and I send a man round in 
the mornin’ to ask how they all are. So Uncle Hobson is gone to 
bed sick with a hookah ? I know there was a deuce of a row made 
when I smoked at Marble Head. You are promised to us for 


80 


THE NEWCOMES 


Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like to meet? 
Not our friend the Rummun! How the girls crowd round him ! 
By Gad, a fellow who’s rich may have the pick of any gal in 
London — not here — not in this sort of thing; I mean in society, 
you know,” says Barnes confidentially. “ I’ve seen the old dowagers 
crowdin’ round that fellow, and the girls snugglin’ up to his india- 
rubber face. He’s known to have two wives already in India ; but, 
by Gad, for a settlement, I believe some of ’em here would marry — 
I mean of the girls in society.” 

“ But isn’t this society ? ” asked the Colonel. 

“ Oh, of course. It’s very good society and that sort of thing — 
but it’s not, you know — you understand. I give you my honour 
there are not three people in the room one meets anywhere, except 
the Rummun. What is he at home, sir? I know he ain’t a 
Prince, you know, any more than I am.” 

“ I believe he is a rich man now,” said the Colonel. “ He 
began from very low beginnings, and odd stories are told about the 
origin of his fortune.” 

“ That may be,” says the young man ; “of course, as business 
men, that’s not our affair. But has he got the fortune ? He keeps 
a large account with us; and, I think, wants to have larger 
dealings with us still. As one of the family we may ask you to 
stand by us, and tell us anything you know. My father has asked 
him down to Newcome, and we’ve taken him up ; wisely or not I 
can’t say. I think otherwise ; but I’m quite young in the house, 
and of course the elders have the chief superintendence.” The 
young man of business had dropped his drawl and his languor, and 
was speaking quite unaffectedly, good-naturedly, and selfishly. Had 
you talked to him for a week, you could not have made him under- 
stand the scorn and loathing with which the Colonel regarded him. 
Here was a young fellow as keen as the oldest curmudgeon ; a lad 
with scarce a beard to his chin that would pursue his bond as rigidly 
as Shylock. “If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at 
fifty?” groaned the Colonel. “I’d rather Clive were dead than 
have him such a heartless worldling as this.” And yet the young 
man’s life was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You 
don’t suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the City 
early enough in the morning ; or slept badly unless he indulged too 
freely overnight; or had twinges of conscience that his life was 
misspent? He thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. 
He had a share in a good business, and felt that he could increase it. 
Some day he would marry a good match, with a good fortune ; mean- 
while he could take his pleasure decorously, and sow his wild oats 
as some of the young Londoners sow them, not broadcast after the 


THE NEWCOMES 


81 


fashion of careless scatterbrained youth, but trimly and neatly, in 
quiet places, where the crop can come up unobserved, and be taken 
in without bustle or scandal. Barnes Newcome never missed going 
to church or dressing for dinner. He never kept a tradesman 
waiting for his money. He seldom drank too much, and never 
was late for business or huddled over his toilet, however brief 
had been his sleep, or severe his headache. In a word, he 
was as scrupulously whited as any sepulchre in the whole bills of 
mortality. 

Whilst young Barnes and his uncle were thus holding parley, 
a slim gentleman of bland aspect, with a roomy forehead, or what 
his female admirers called “ a noble brow,” and a neat white neck- 
cloth tied with clerical skill, was surveying Colonel Newcome 
through his shining spectacles, and waiting for an opportunity to 
address him. The Colonel remarked the eagerness with which 
the gentleman in black regarded him, and asked Mr. Barnes who 
was the padre 1 ? Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass towards the 
spectacles, and said, “ he didn’t know any more than the dead ; 
he didn’t know two people in the room.” The spectacles never- 
theless made the eyeglass a bow, of which the latter took no sort 
of cognizance. The spectacles advanced; Mr. Newcome fell back 
with a peevish exclamation of “ Confound the fellow, what is he 
coming to speak to me for ? ” He did not choose to be addressed 
by all sorts of persons in all houses. 

But he of the spectacles, with an expression of delight in his 
pale-blue eyes, and smiles dimpling his countenance, pressed on- 
wards with outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel 
he turned these smiles and friendly salutations. “Did I hear 
aright, sir, from Mrs. Miles,” he said, “and have I the honour 
of speaking to Colonel Newcome?” 

“ The same, sir,” says the Colonel ; at which the other, tearing 
off a glove of lavender-coloured kid, uttered the words “Charles 
Honeyman,” and seized the hand of his brother-in-law. “My 
poor sister’s husband,” he continued ; “ my own benefactor ; Clive’s 
father. How strange are these meetings in the mighty world ! 
How I rejoice to see you, and know you ! ” 

“You are Charles, are you?” cries the other. “I am very 
glad indeed to shake you by the hand, Honeyman. Clive and I 
should have beat up your quarters to-day, but we were busy until 
dinner-time. You put me in mind of poor Emma, Charles,” he 
added sadly. Emma had not been a good wife to him ; a flighty 
silly little woman, who had caused him when alive many a night 
of pain and day of anxiety. 

“ Poor, poor Emma ! ” exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his 
8 F 


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eyes towards the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket- 
handkerchief gracefully before them. No man in London under- 
stood the ring business or the pocket-handkerchief business better, 
or smothered his emotion more beautifully. “In the gayest 
moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the 
past will rise ; the departed will be among us still. But this is 
not the strain wherewith to greet the friend newly arrived on our 
shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in Old England ! How 
you must have joyed to see Olive ! ” 

“D the humbug,” muttered Barnes, who knew him per- 

fectly well. “The fellow is always in the pulpit.” 

The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel smiled and bowed 
to him. “ You do not recognise me, sir ; I have had the honour 
of seeing you in your public capacity in the City, when I have 
called at the bank, the bearer of my brother-in-law’s generous ” 

“Never mind that, Honeyman ! ” cried the Colonel. 

“ But I do mind, my dear Colonel,” answers Mr. Honeyman. 
“ I should be a very bad man, and a very ungrateful brother, if I 
ever forgot your kindness.” 

“ For God’s sake leave my kindness alone.” 

“ He’ll never leave it alone as long as he can use it,” muttered 
Mr. Barnes in his teeth ; and turning to his uncle, “ May I take 
you home, sir? My cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to 
drive you.” But the Colonel said he must talk to his brother- 
in-law for a while; and Mr. Barnes, bowing very respectfully to 
him, slipped under a dowager’s arm in the doorway, and retreated 
silently downstairs. 

Newcome was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and 
the latter described the personages present to the stranger, who 
was curious to know how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcome 
herself would have been pleased had she heard Honeyman’s dis- 
course regarding her guests and herself. Charles Honeyman so 
spoke of most persons that you might fancy they were listening 
over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning, genius, and 
virtue might well delight and astonish a stranger. “ That lady in 
the red turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge, wife 
of the eminent judge of that name — everybody was astonished that 
he was not made Chief- Justice, and elevated to the Peerage — the 
only objection (as I have heard confidentially) was on the part of 
a late sovereign, who said he never could consent to have a peer of 
the name of Budge. Her ladyship was of humble, I have heard 
even menial, station originally, but becomes her present rank, dis- 
penses the most elegant hospitality at her mansion in Connaught 
Terrace, and is a pattern as a wife and a mother. The young man 


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S3 


talking to her daughter is a young barrister, already becoming 
celebrated as a contributor to some of our principal reviews.” 

“ Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the 
Jew with the beard 1 ” asks the Colonel. 

“ He — he ! That cavalry officer is another literary man of 
celebrity, and by profession an attorney. But he has quitted the 
law for the Muses, and it would appear that the Nine are never 
wooed except by gentlemen with mustachios.” 

“ Never wrote a verse in my life,” says the Colonel, laughing, 
and stroking his own. 

“ For I remark so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. 
The Jew with the beard, as you call him, is Herr von Lungen, the 
eminent hautboy-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Smee, 
of the Royal Academy (who is shaved as you perceive), and Mr. 
Moyes and Mr. Cropper, who are both very hairy about the chin. 
At the piano, singing, accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is 
Signor Mezzocaldo, the great barytone from Rome. Professor 
Quartz and Baron Hammerstein, celebrated geologists from Germany, 
are talking with their illustrious confrere , Sir Robert Craxton, in 
the door. Do you see yonder that stout gentleman, with snuff on 
his shirt ? the eloquent Doctor McGuffog, of Edinburgh, talking to 
Doctor Ettore, who lately escaped from the Inquisition at Rome, 
in the disguise of a washerwoman, after undergoing the question 
several times, the rack and the thumbscrew. They say that he was 
to have been burned in the Grand Square the next morning ; but 
between ourselves, my dear Colonel, I mistrust these stories of 
converts and martyrs. Did you ever see a more jolly-looking man 
than Professor Schnurr, who was locked up in Spielberg, and got 
out up a chimney, and through a window % Had he waited a few 
months, there are very few windows he could have passed through. 
That splendid man in the red fez is Kurbash Pasha — another 
renegade, I deeply lament to say — a hairdresser from Marseilles, by 
name Monsieur Ferchaud, who passed into Egypt, and laid aside the 
tongs for the turban. He is talking with Mr. Palmer, one of our 
most delightful young poets, and with Desmond O’Tara, son of the 
late revered Bishop of Ballinafad, who has lately quitted ours for 
the errors of the Church of Rome. Let me whisper to you that 
your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we call here nota- 
bilities. I heard talk of one I knew in better days — of one who 
was the comrade of my youth, and the delight of Oxford — poor 
Pidge of Brasenose, who got the Newdigate in my third year, and 
who, under his present name of Father Bartalo, was to have been 
here in his Capuchin dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I 
presume he could not get permission from his superior. That is 


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Mr. Huff, the political economist, talking with Mr. Macduff, the 
Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner for Middlesex, con- 
versing with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and that pretty 
little laughing girl talking with them is no other than the celebrated 
Miss Pinnifer, whose novel of ‘ Ralph the Resurrectionist 5 created 
such a sensation after it was abused in the Trimestrial Review. 
It was a little bold certainly— I just looked at it at my club — after 
hours devoted to parish duty a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you 
know, desipere in loco — there are descriptions in it certainly start- 
ling — ideas about marriage not exactly orthodox ; but the poor 
child wrote the book actually in the nursery, and all England was 
ringing with it before Doctor Pinnifer, her father, knew who was 
the author. That is the Doctor asleep in the corner by Miss 
Rudge, the American authoress, who, I dare say, is explaining to 
him the difference between the two Governments. My dear Mrs. 
Newcome, I am giving my brother-in-law a little sketch of some 
of the celebrities who are crowding your salon to-night. What a 
delightful evening you have given us ! ” 

“ I try to do my best, Colonel Newcome,” said the lady of the 
house. “ I hope many a night we may see you here ; and, as I 
said this morning, Clive, when he is of an age to appreciate this 
kind of entertainment. Fashion I do not worship. You may meet 
that amongst other branches of our family ; but genius and talent I 
do reverence. And if I can be the means — the humble means — 
to bring men of genius together — mind to associate with mind — 
men of all nations to mingle in friendly unison — I shall not have 
lived altogether in vain. They call us women of the world frivolous , 
Colonel Newcome. So some may be ; I do not say there are not in 
our own family persons who worship mere worldly rank, and think 
but of fashion and gaiety ; but such, I trust, will never be the 
objects in life of me and my children. We are but merchants ; we 
seek to be no more. If I can look around me and see as I do ” — 
(she waves her fan round, and points to the illustrations scintillating 
round the room) — “ and see as I do now — a Poski, whose name is 
ever connected with Polish history — an Ettore, who has exchanged 
a tonsure and a rack for our own free country — a Hammerstein, 
and a Quartz, a Miss Rudge, our Transatlantic sister (who, I trust, 
will not mention this modest salon in her forthcoming work on 
Europe), and Miss Pinnifer, whose genius I acknowledge, though 
I deplore her opinions; if I can gather together travellers, poets, 
and painters, princes and distinguished soldiers from the East, 
and clergymen remarkable for their eloquence, my humble aim 
is attained, and Maria Newcome is not altogether useless in her 
generation. Will you take a little refreshment 1 Allow your sister 


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to go down to the dining-room, supported by your gallant 
She looked round to the admiring congregation, whereof Honeyi. 
as it were, acted as clerk, and flirting her fan, and flinging up h 
little head, Consummate Virtue walked down on the arm of the 
Colonel. 

The refreshment was rather meagre. The foreign artists gener- 
ally dashed downstairs, and absorbed all the ices, creams, &c. To 
those coming late there were chicken-bones, tablecloths puddled 
with melted ice, glasses hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. 
The Colonel said he never supped; and he and Honeyman walked 
away together, the former to bed, the latter, I am sorry to say, to 
his club; for he was a dainty feeder, and loved lobster, and talk 
late at night, and a comfortable little glass of something wherewith 
to conclude the day. 

He agreed to come to breakfast with the Colonel, who named 
eight or nine for the meal. Nine Mr. Honeyman agreed to with 
a sigh. The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel seldom rose 
before eleven. For, to tell the truth, no French abbd of Louis XV. 
was more lazy, and luxurious, and effeminate, than our polite bachelor 
preacher. 

One of Colonel Newcome’s fellow-passengers from India was 
Mr. James Binnie, of the Civil Service, a jolly young bachelor of 
two or three and forty, who, having spent half of his past life in 
Bengal, was bent upon enjoying the remainder in Britain or in 
Europe, if a residence at home should prove agreeable to him. The 
nabob of books and tradition is a personage no longer to be found 
among us. He is neither as wealthy nor as wicked as the jaundiced 
monster of romances and comedies, who purchases the estates of 
broken-down English gentlemen with rupees tortured out of bleeding 
rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public, and in private carries about 
a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and a diseased liver ; 
who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants whom she 
maltreats, and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and an 
imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents’ 
lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If 
you go to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say 
“ Bring more curricles,” like the famous Nabob of Stanstead Park. 
He goes to Leadenhall Street in an omnibus, and walks back from 
the City for exercise. I have known some who have had maid- 
servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look 
as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his 
paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen jackets in 
summer. Their livers are not out of order any more ; and as for 
hookahs, I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within the 


THE NEWCOMES 


of mortality ; and that retired Indians would as soon think 
.moking them, as their wives would of burning themselves on 
ieir husbands’ bodies at the cemetery, Kensal Green, near to the 
Tyburnian quarter of the city which the Indian world at present 
inhabits. It used to be Baker Street and Harley Street ; it used 
to be Portland Place, and, in more early days, Bedford Square, 
where the Indian magnates flourished ; districts which have fallen 
from their pristine state of splendour now, even as Agra, and 
Benares, and Lucknow, and Tippoo Sultan’s city are fallen. 

After two-and-twenty years’ absence from London, Mr. Binnie 
returned to it on the top of the Gosport coach with a hatbox and 
a little portmanteau, a pink fresh -shaven face, a perfect appetite, a 
suit of clothes like everybody else’s, and not the shadow of a black 
servant. He called a cab at the White Horse Cellar, and drove to 
Nerot’s Hotel, Clifford Street; and he gave the cabman eightpence, 
making the fellow, who grumbled, understand that Clifford Street 
was not two hundred yards from Bond Street, and that he was paid 
at the rate of five shillings and fourpence per mile — calculating the 
mile at only sixteen hundred yards. He asked the waiter at what 
time Colonel Newcome had ordered dinner, and finding there was an 
hour on his hands before the meal, walked out to examine the neigh- 
bourhood for a lodging where he could live more quietly than in a 
hotel. He called it a hotal. Mr. Binnie was a North Briton, his 
father having been a Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, who had 
procured his son a writership in return for electioneering services 
done to an East Indian Director. Binnie had his retiring pension, 
and, besides, had saved half his allowances ever since he had been 
in India. He was a man of great reading, no small ability, con- 
siderable accomplishment, excellent good sense and good-humour. 
The ostentatious said he was a screw; but he gave away more 
money than far more extravagant people : he was a disciple of 
David Hume (whom he admired more than any other mortal), and 
the serious denounced him as a man of dangerous principles, though 
there were, among the serious, men much more dangerous than 
James Binnie. 

On returning to his hotel, Colonel Newcome found this worthy 
gentleman installed in his room in the best arm-chair, sleeping 
cosily; the evening paper laid decently over his plump waistcoat, 
and his little legs placed on an opposite chair. Mr. Binnie woke 
up briskly when the Colonel entered. “It is you, you gad-about, 
is it ? ” cried the civilian. “ How has the beau monde of London 
treated the Indian Adonis'? Have you made a sensation, New- 
come? Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck of bucks when that 
coat first came out to Calcutta — just a Barrackpore Brummel — 


THE NEWCOMES 87 

in Lord Minto’s reign was it, or when Lord Hastings was Satrap 
over us ? ” 

“ A man must have one good coat,” says the Colonel ; “I don’t 
profess to be a dandy ; but get a coat from a good tailor, and then 
have done with it.” He still thought his garment was as handsome 
as need be. 

“ Done with it — ye’re never done with it ! ” cried the civilian. 

“ An old coat is an old friend, old Binnie. I don’t want to be 
rid of one or the other. How long did you and my boy sit up 
together — isn’t he a fine lad, Binnie? I expect you are going to 
put him down for something handsome in your will.” 

“ See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel ! I sat 
up for ye, or let us say more correctly, I waited for you — because 
I knew you would want to talk about that scapegrace of yours. 
And if I had gone to bed, I should have had you walking up to 
No. 26, and waking me out of my first rosy slumber. Well, now 
confess; avoid not. Haven’t ye fallen in love with some young 
beauty on the very first night of your arrival in your sister’s salong, 
and selected a mother-in-law for your scapegrace ? ” 

“Isn’t he a fine fellow, James?” says the Colonel, lighting a 
cheroot as he sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle 
with which he lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest 
features so, and made them so to shine ? 

“ I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad’s moral measure- 
ment : and I have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross- 
examined a rogue in my court. I place his qualities thus : — Love 
of approbation, sixteen. Benevolence, fourteen. Combativeness, 
fourteen. Adhesiveness, two. Amativeness is not yet of course 
fully developed, but I expect will be prodeegiously strong. The 
imaginative and reflective organs are very large ; those of calculation 
weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or you may make a 
sojor of him, though worse men than him’s good enough for that 
— but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathe- 
matician. He has wit and conscientiousness, so ye mustn’t think 
of making a clergyman of him.” 

“ Binnie ! ” says the Colonel gravely, “ you are always sneering 
at the cloth.” 

“When I think that, but for my appointment to India, I 
should have been a luminary of the faith and a pillar of the 
Church ! grappling with the ghostly enemy in the pulpit, and giving 
out the psawm. Eh, sir, what a loss Scottish Divinity has had in 
James Binnie ! ” cries the little civilian with his most comical face. 
“ But that is not the question. My opinion, Colonel, is, that young 
scapegrace will give you a deal of trouble ; or would, only you are 


88 


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so absurdly proud of him that you think everything he does is 
perfaction. He’ll spend your money for you ; he’ll do as little 
work as need be. He’ll get into scrapes with the sax. He’s 
almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue 
will cheat him ; and he seems to me to have got your obstinate 
habit of telling the truth, Colonel, which may prevent his getting 
on in the world ; but on the other hand will keep him from going 
very wrong. So that, though there is every fear for him, there’s 
some hope and some consolation.” 

“ What do you think of his Latin and Greek \ ” asks the 
Colonel. Before going out to his party, Newcome had laid a deep 
scheme with Binnie, and it had been agreed that the latter should 
examine the young fellow in his humanities. 

“Wall,” cries the Scot, “I find that the lad knows as much 
about Greek and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years 
of age.” 

“ My dear Binnie, is it possible ? You, the best scholar in all 
India ! ” 

“ And which amounted to exactly nothing. He has acquired in 
five years, and by the admirable seestem purshood at your public 
schools, just about as much knowledge of the ancient languages as 
he could get by three months’ application at home. Mind ye, I 
don’t say he would apply ; it is most probable he would do no such 
thing. But, at the cost of — how much 1 ? two hundred pounds 
annually — for five years — he has acquired about five-and-twenty 
guineas’ worth of classical leeterature — enough, I dare say, to enable 
him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what more do 
you want from a young man of his expectations 'i I think I should 
send him into the army, that’s the best place for him — there’s the 
least to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. Acce segnum ! ” 
says the little wag, daintily taking up the tail of his friend’s coat. 
“ In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I think your boy is as fine a lad 
as I ever set eyes on. He seems to have intelligence and good 
temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in his counte- 
nance ; and with the honesty — and the rupees, mind ye — which he 
inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can’t make his way. 
What time’s the breakfast 1 Eh, but it was a comfort this morning 
not to hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into 
lodgings, and not fling our money out of the window of this hotel. 
We must make the young chap take us about and show us the 
town in the morning, Tom. I had but three days of it five-and- 
twenty years ago, and I propose to reshoome my observations 
to-morrow after breakfast. We’ll just go on deck and see how’s 
her head before we turn in, eh, Colonel 1 ” and with this the jolly 


THE NEWCOMES 89 

gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend, and trotted off 
to bed. 

The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers, 
like most men that come from the country where they had both 
been so long sojourning, and were awake and dressed long before 
the London waiters had thought of quitting their beds. The 
housemaid was the only being stirring in the morning when little 
Mr. Binnie blundered over her pail as she was washing the deck. 
Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had preceded him. Binnie 
found the Colonel in his sitting-room, arrayed in what are called in 
Scotland his stocking-feet, already puffing the cigar, which, in truth, 
was seldom out of his mouth at any hour of the day. 

He had a couple of bedrooms adjacent to this sitting-room, and 
when Binnie, as brisk and rosy about the gills as Chanticleer, 
broke out in a morning salutation, “ Hush,” says the Colonel, 
putting a long finger up to his mouth, and advancing towards him 
as noiselessly as a ghost. 

“What’s in the wind now 1 ?” asks the little Scot; “and what 
for have ye not got your shoes on 1 ” 

“ Clive’s asleep,” says the Colonel, with a countenance full of 
extreme anxiety. 

“The darling boy slumbers, does her’ said the wag; “mayn’t 
I just step in and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he’s 
asleep, Colonel ?” 

“You may if you take off those confounded creaking shoes,” 
the other answered, quite gravely : and Binnie turned away to hide 
his jolly round face, which was screwed up with laughter. 

“Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant’s 
slumbers, Tom ? ” asks Mr. Binnie. 

“And if I have, James Binnie,” the Colonel said gravely, and 
his sallow face blushing somewhat, “if I have, I hope I’ve done 
no harm. The last time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a 
sickly little pale-faced boy in his little cot, and now, sir, that I 
see him again, strong and handsome, and all that a fond father can 
wish to see a boy, I should be an ungrateful villain, James, if I 
didn’t — if I didn’t do what you said just now, and thank God 
Almighty for restoring him to me.” 

Binnie did not laugh any more. “ By George, Tom Newcome,” 
said he, “ you’re just one of the saints of the earth. If all men 
were like you there’d be an end of both our trades ; there would 
be no fighting and no soldiering, no rogues and no magistrates to 
catch them.” The Colonel wondered at his friend’s enthusiasm, 
who was not used to be complimentary ; indeed what so usual with 
him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which his 


90 


THE NEWCOMES 


comrade spoke to him? To ask a blessing for his boy was as 
natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when 
the day was over. His first and his last thought was always 
the child. 

The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive 
dressed, and his uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a 
grace over that meal : the life was begun which he had longed and 
prayed for, and the son smiling before his eyes who had been in 
his thoughts for so many fond years. 


CHAPTER IX 

MISS HONEYMAN’S 


I N Steyne Gardens, Brighton, the lodging-houses are among the 
most frequented in that city of lodging-houses. These mansions 
have bow- windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, 
and ornamented with neat verandahs, from which you can behold 
the tide of humankind as it flows up and down the Steyne, and 
that blue ocean over which Britannia is said to rule, stretching 
brightly away eastward and westward. The Chain-pier, as every- 
body knows, runs intrepidly into the sea, which sometimes, in fine 
weather, bathes its feet with laughing wavelets, and anon, on stormy 
days, dashes over its sides with roaring foam. Here, for the sum 
of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck without 
need of a steward with a basin. You can watch the sun setting 
in splendour over Worthing, or illuminating witli its rising glories 
the ups and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his 
family inveigled into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, 
and fancy that the motion cannot be pleasant ; and how the hirer 
of the boat, otiv/rn et oppidi laudans rura sui, haply sighs for ease, 
and prefers Richmond or Hampstead. You behold a hundred 
bathing-machines put to sea ; and your naughty fancy depicts the 
beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the rippled 
sands (stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach 1) the prawn- 
boy seeks the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast — 
meal in London almost unknown, greedily devoured in Brighton ! 
In yon vessels now nearing the shore the sleepless mariner has 
ventured forth to seize the delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish 
mackerel, and the homely sole. Hark to the twanging horn ! it 
is the early coach going out to London. Your eye follows it, and 
rests on the pinnacles built by the beloved George. See the 
worn-out London roud pacing the pier, inhaling the sea-air, and 
casting furtive glances under the bonnets of the pretty girls who 
trot here before lessons ! Mark the bilious lawyer, escaped for 
a day from Pump Court, and snifling the fresh breezes before he 
goes back to breakfast and a bag full of briefs at the Albion ! See 
that pretty string of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubby-cheeked, 


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92 

flaxen-headed little maiden just toddling by the side of the second 
teacher, to the arch damsel of fifteen, giggling and conscious of 
her beauty, whom Miss Griffin, the stern head-governess, awfully 
reproves ! See Tomkins with a telescope and marine-jacket ; young 
Nathan and young Abrams, already bedizened in jewellery, and 
rivalling the sun in oriental splendour ; yonder poor invalid crawling 
along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady examining the Brighton 
pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one), and her children 
wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold hair, and 
gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of art, and 
cheap at seven-and-sixpence ! It is the fashion to run down 
George IV., but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him 
for inventing Brighton ! One of the best of physicians our city has 
ever known, is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou 
purveyor of shrimps and honest prescriber of South Down mutton ! 
There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton ; no flys so pleasant 
as Brighton flys ; nor any cliff so pleasant to ride on ; no shops so 
beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack shops, and the fruit 
shops, and the market. I fancy myself in Miss Honeyman’s lodgings 
in Steyne Gardens, and in enjoyment of all these things. 

If the gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as 
to cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury 
of starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by 
no means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money 
has been invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless 
speculations — the news of the smash comes ; you pay your outlying 
bills with the balance at the banker’s ; you assemble your family 
and make them a fine speech ; the wife of your bosom goes round 
and embraces the sons and daughters seriatim ; nestling in your 
own waistcoat finally, in possession of which, she says (with tender 
tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ, God bless her !), and of 
the darlings round about, lies all her worldly treasure : the weeping 
servants are dismissed, their wages paid in full, and with a present 
of prayer and hymn books from their mistress ; your elegant house 
in Harley Street is to let, and you subside into lodgings in Pen- 
tonville, or Kensington, or Brompton. How unlike the mansion 
where you paid taxes and distributed elegant hospitality for so 
many years ! 

You subside into lodgings, I say, and you find yourself very 
tolerably comfortable. I am not sure that in her heart your wife 
is not happier than in what she calls her happy days. She will be 
somebody hereafter : she was nobody in Harley Street : that is, 
everybody else in her visiting-book, take the names all round, was 
as good as she. They had the very same entrees, plated ware, men 


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93 


to wait, &c., at all the houses where you visited in the street. 
Your candlesticks might be handsomer (and indeed they had a fine 
effect upon the dinner-table), but then Mr. Jones’s silver (or electro- 
plated) dishes were much finer. You had more carriages at your 
door on the evening of your delightful soirees than Mrs. Brown 
(there is no phrase more elegant, and to my taste, than that in 
which people are described as “seeing a great deal of carriage 
company ”) ; but yet Mrs. Brown, from the circumstance of her 
being a baronet’s niece, took precedence of your dear wife at most 
tables. Hence the latter charming woman’s scorn at the British 
baronetcy, and her many jokes at the order. In a word, and in the 
height of your social prosperity, there was always a lurking dis- 
satisfaction, and a something bitter, in the midst of the fountain of 
delights at which you were permitted to drink. 

There is no good (unless your taste is that way) in living in a 
society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many 
people give themselves extreme pains to frequent company where 
all around them are their superiors, and where, do what you will, 
you must be subject to continual mortification — (as, for instance, 
when Marchioness X. forgets you, and you can’t help thinking that 
she cuts you on purpose; when Duchess Z. passes by in her 
diamonds, &c.). The true pleasure of life is to live with your 
inferiors. Be the cock of your village ; the queen of your coterie ; 
and, besides very great persons, the people whom Fate has specially 
endowed with this kindly consolation, are those who have seen what 
are called better days — those who have had losses. I am like 
Caesar, and of a noble mind : if I cannot be first in Piccadilly, let 
me try Hatton Garden, and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. 
If I cannot take the lead at White’s or the Travellers’, let me be 
president of the Jolly Sandboys at the Bag of Nails, and blackball 
everybody who does not pay me honour. If my darling Bessy 
cannot go out of a drawing-room until a baronet’s niece (ha ! ha ! a 
baronet’s niece, forsooth !) has walked before her, let us frequent 
company where we shall be the first ; and how can we be the first 
unless we select our inferiors for our associates'? This kind of 
pleasure is to be had by almost everybody, and at scarce any cost. 
With a shilling’s-worth of tea and muffins you can get as much 
adulation and respect as many people cannot purchase with a 
thousand pounds’ worth of plate and profusion, hired footmen, 
turning their houses topsy-turvy, and suppers from Gunter’s. 
Adulation ! — why, the people who come to you give as good parties 
as you do. Respect ! — the very menials, who wait behind your 
supper-table, waited at a duke’s yesterday, and actually patronise 
you ! 0 you silly spendthrift ! you can buy flattery for twopence, 


THE NEWCOMES 


94 

and you spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals and 
betters, and nobody admires you ! 

Now Aunt Honeyman was a woman of a thousand virtues ; 
cheerful, frugal, honest, laborious, charitable, good-humoured, truth- 
telling, devoted, to her family, capable of any sacrifice for those she 
loved ; and when she came to have losses of money, Fortune 
straightway compensated her by many kindnesses which no income 
can supply. The good old lady admired the word gentlewoman of 
all others in the English vocabulary, and made all around her feel 
that such was her rank. Her mother’s father was a naval captain ; 
her father had taken pupils, got a living, sent his son to college, 
dined with the squire, published his volume of sermons, was liked 
in his parish, where Miss Honeyman kept house for him, was 
respected for his kindness and famous for his port- wine; and so 
died, leaving about two hundred pounds a year to his two children, 
nothing to Clive Newcome’s mother, who had displeased him by 
her first marriage (an elopement with Ensign Casey) and subsequent 
light courses. Charles Honeyman spent his money elegantly in 
wine-parties at Oxford, and afterwards in foreign travel ; — spent his 
money, and as much of Miss Honeyman’s as that worthy soul 
would give him. She was a woman of spirit and resolution. She 
brought her furniture to Brighton (believing that the whole place 
still fondly remembered her grandfather, Captain Nokes, who had 
resided there, and his gallantry in Lord Rodney’s action with the 
Count de Grasse), took a house, and let the upper floors to 
lodgers. 

The little brisk old lady brought a maid-servant out of the 
country with her, who was daughter to her father’s clerk, and had 
learned her letters and worked her first sampler under Miss 
Honeyman’s own eye, whom she adored all through her life. No 
Indian begum rolling in wealth, no countess mistress of castles and 
town-houses, ever had such a faithful toady as Hannah Hicks was 
to her mistress. Under Hannah was a young lady from the 
workhouse, who called Hannah “Mrs. Hicks, mum,” and who 
bowed as much in awe before that domestic as Hannah did before 
Miss Honeyman. At five o’clock in summer, at seven in winter 
(for Miss Honeyman, a good economist, was chary of candle-light), 
Hannah woke up little Sally, and these three women rose. I leave 
you to imagine what a row there was in the establishment if Sally 
appeared with flowers under her bonnet, gave signs of levity or 
insubordination, prolonged her absence when sent forth for the 
beer, or was discovered in flirtation with the baker’s boy or the 
grocer’s young man. Sally was frequently renewed. Miss Honeyman 
called all her young persons Sally ; and a great number of Sallies 


THE NEWCOMES 


95 

were consumed in her house. The qualities of the Sally for the 
time being formed a constant and delightful subject of conversation 
between Hannah and her mistress. The few friends who visited 
Miss Honeyman in her back-parlour had their Sallies, in discussing 
whose peculiarities of disposition these good ladies passed the hours 
agreeably over their tea. 

Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants 
themselves- — are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like. 
With these surrounding individuals Hannah treated on a footing of 
equality, bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings- 
on : “how No. 6 was let ; how No. 9 had not paid his rent again ; 
how the first floor at 27 had game almost every day, and made- 
dishes from Mutton’s ; how the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby’s 
had left as usual after the very first night, the poor little infant 
blistered all over with bites on its dear little face ; how the Miss 
Learys was going on shameful with the two young men, actially in 
their setting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura 
Leary a cigar ; how Mrs. Cribb still went cuttin’ pounds and 
pounds of meat off the lodgers’ jints, emptying their tea-caddies, 
actially reading their letters. Sally had been told so by Polly the 
Cribbses’ maid, who was kep’, how that poor child was kep’, hearing 
language perfectly hawful ! ” These tales and anecdotes, not alto- 
gether redounding to their neighbours’ credit, Hannah copiously 
collected and brought to her mistress’s tea-table, or served at her 
frugal little supper when Miss Honeyman, the labours of the day 
over, partook of that cheerful meal. I need not say that such 
horrors as occurred at Mrs. Bugsby’s never befell in Miss Honey- 
man’s establishment. Every room was fiercely swept and sprinkled, 
and watched by cunning eyes which nothing could escape ; curtains 
were taken down, mattresses explored, every bone in a bed dislo- 
cated and washed as soon as a lodger took his departure. And as 
for cribbing meat or sugar, Sally might occasionally abstract a 
lump or two, or pop a veal cutlet into her mouth while bringing 
the dishes downstairs : — Sallies would — giddy creatures bred in 
workhouses ; but Hannah might be entrusted with untold gold and 
uncorked brandy; and Miss Honeyman would as soon think of 
cutting a slice off Hannah’s nose and devouring it, as of poaching 
on her lodgers’ mutton. The best mutton-broth, the best veal- 
cutlets, the best necks of mutton and French beans, the best fried 
fish and plumpest partridges in all Brighton, were to be had at 
Miss Honeyman’s ; and for her favourites the best Indian curry and 
rice, coming from a distinguished relative, at present an officer 
in Bengal. But very few were admitted to this mark of Miss 
Honeyman’s confidence. If a family did not go to church they 


THE NEWCOMES 


96 

were not in favour ; if they went to a Dissenting meeting she had 
no opinion of them at all. Once there came to her house a quiet 
Staffordshire family who ate no meat on Fridays, and whom Miss 
Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Roman superstition ; but 
when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one 
of whom wore a purple under-waistcoat, and before whom the 
Staffordshire lady absolutely sank down on her knees as he went 
into the drawing-room, Miss Honeyman sternly gave warning to 
these idolaters. She would have no Jesuits in her premises. She 
showed Hannah the picture in Howell’s “ Medulla ” of the martyrs 
burning at Smithfield : who said, “ Lord bless you, mum ! ” and 
hoped it was a long time ago. She called on the curate ; and many 
and many a time, for years after, pointed out to her friends, and 
sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on the carpet where the poor 
benighted creature had knelt down. So she went on, respected by 
all her friends, by all her tradesmen, by herself not a little, talking 
of her previous “ misfortunes ” with amusing equanimity ; as if her 
father’s parsonage-house had been a palace of splendour, and the 
one-horse chaise (with the lamps for evenings) from which she had 
descended, a noble equipage. “ But I know it is for the best, 
Clive,” she would say to her nephew in describing those grandeurs 
“ and, thank Heaven, can be resigned in that station in life to which 
it has pleased God to call me.” 

The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow-tradesfolk in 
the square in which she lived. (I don’t know what would have 
come to her had she been told she was a tradeswoman !) Her 
butchers, bakers, and market-people paid her as much respect as 
though she had been a grandee’s housekeeper out of Kemp Town. 
Knowing her station, she yet was kind to those inferior beings. She 
held affable conversations with them, she patronised Mr. Rogers, who 
was said to be worth a hundred thousand — two hundred thousand 
pounds (or lbs. was it?), and who said, “Law bless the old Duchess, 
she do make as much of a pound of veal-cutlet as some would of a 
score of bullocks, but you see she’s a lady born and a lady bred : 
she’d die before she’d owe a farden, and she’s seen better days, 
you know.” She went to see the grocer’s wife on an interesting 
occasion, and won the heart of the family by tasting their caudle. 
Her fishmonger (it was fine to hear her talk of “ my fishmonger ” ) 
would sell her a whiting as respectfully as if she had called for a 
dozen turbots and lobsters. It was believed by those good folks 
that her father had been a Bishop at the very least ; and the better 
days which she had known were supposed to signify some almost 
unearthly prosperity. “ I have always found, Hannah,” the simple 
soul would say, “that people know their place, or can be very 


THE NEWCOMES 


97 

easily made to find it if they lose it ; and if a gentlewoman does 
not forget herself, her inferiors will not forget that she is a gentle- 
woman.” “No, indeed, mum, and I’m sure they would do no such 
thing, mum,” says Hannah, who carries away the teapot for her 
own breakfast (to be transmitted to Sally for her subsequent re- 
fection), whilst her mistress washes her cup and saucer, as her 
mother had washed her own china many scores of years ago. 

If some of the surrounding lodging-house keepers, as I have no 
doubt they did, disliked the little Duchess for the airs which she 
gave herself, as they averred, they must have envied her too her 
superior prosperity, for there was scarcely ever a card in her 
window; whilst those ensigns in her neighbours’ houses would 
remain exposed to the flies and the weather, and disregarded by 
passers-by for months together. She had many regular customers, 
or what should be rather called constant friends. Deaf old Mr. 
Cricklade came every winter for fourteen years, and stopped until 
the hunting was over; an invaluable man, giving little trouble, 
passing all day on horseback, and all night over his rubber at the 
club. The Misses Barkham, Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, whose 
father had been at college with Mr. Honeyman, came regularly in 
June for sea air, letting Barkhambury for the summer season. 
Then, for many years, she had her nephew as we have seen ; and 
kind recommendations from the clergymen of Brighton, and a 
constant friend in the celebrated Doctor Goodenough of London, 
who had been her father’s private pupil, and of his college after- 
wards, who sent his patients from time to time down to her, and 

his fellow-physician, Doctor H , who, on his part, would never 

take any fee from Miss Honeyman, except a packet of India curry- 
powder, a ham cured as she only knew how to cure them, and once 
a year, or so, a dish of her tea. 

“ Was there ever such luck as that confounded old Duchess’s ? ” 
says Mr. Gawler, coal-merchant and lodging-house keeper, next door 
but two, whose apartments were more odious, in some respects, 
than Mrs. Bugsby’s own. “ Was there ever such devil’s own luck, 
Mrs. G. ? It’s only a fortnight ago as I read in the Sussex 
Advertiser the death of Miss Barkham, of Barkhambury, Tunbridge 
Wells, and, thinks I, there’s a spoke in your wheel, you stuck-up 
little old Duchess, with your cussed airs and impudence. And she 
ain’t put her card up three days ; and look yere, yere’s two carriages, 
two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up in a Hinjar 
shawl — man hout a livery, — looks like a foring cove, I think- — lady 
in satin pelisse, and of course they go to the Duchess, be hanged to 
her ! Of course it’s our luck, nothing ever was like our luck. I’m 
blowed if I don’t put a pistol to my ’ead, and end it, Mrs. G. 

8 G 


98 


THE NEWCOMES 


There they go in — three, four, six, seven on ’em, and the man. 
That’s the precious child’s physic I suppose he’s a-carryin’ in the 
basket. Just look at the luggage. I say ! There’s a bloody hand 
on the first carriage. It’s a baronet, is it ? I ’ope your ladyship’s 
very well ; and I ’ope Sir John will soon be down yere to join his 
family.” Mr. Gawler makes sarcastic bows over the card in his 
bow-window whilst making this speech. The little Gawlers rush 
on to the drawing-room verandah themselves to examine the new 
arrivals. 

“This is Miss Honeyman’s ? ” asks the gentleman designated by 
Mr. Gawler as “ the foring cove,” and hands in a card on which the 
words, “Miss Honeyman, 110 Steyne Gardens. — J. Goodenough,” 
are written in that celebrated physician’s handwriting. “We want 
fife betrooms, six bets, two or dree sitting-rooms. Have you got 
dese ? ” 

“Will you speak to my mistress ? ” says Hannah. And if it 
is a fact that Miss Honeyman does happen to be in the front parlour 
looking at the carriages, what harm is there in the circumstance, 
pray ? Is not Gawler looking, and the people next door ? Are not 
half-a-dozen little boys already gathered in the street (as if they 
started up out of the trap-doors for the coals), and the nursery- 
maids in the stunted little garden, are they not looking through the 
bars of the square? “Please to speak to mistress,” says Hannah, 
opening the parlour door, and with a curtsey, “A gentleman about 
the apartments, mum.” 

“ Fife betrooms,” says the man, entering, “ six bets, two or dree 
sitting-rooms? We gome from Doctor Goodenough.” 

“Are the apartments for you, sir?” says the little Duchess, 
looking up at the large gentleman. 

“ For my Lady,” answers the man. 

“Had you not better take off your hat?” asks the Duchess, 
pointing out of one of her little mittens to “the foring cove’s” 
beaver, which he had neglected to remove. 

The man grins, and takes off the hat. “ I beck your bardon, 
ma’am,” says he. “Have you fife betrooms?” &c. The Doctor 
has cured the German of an illness, as well as his employers, and 
especially recommended Miss Honeyman to Mr. Kuhn. 

“ I have that number of apartments. My servant will show 
them to you.” And she walks back with great state to her chair 
by the window, and resumes her station and work there. 

Mr. Kuhn reports to his mistress, who descends to inspect the 
apartments, accompanied through them by Hannah. The rooms 
are pronounced to be exceedingly neat and pleasant, and exactly 
what are wanted for the family. The baggage is forthwith ordered 


THE NEWCOMES 


99 


to be brought from the carriages. The little invalid, wrapped in 
his shawl, is brought upstairs by the affectionate Mr. Kuhn, who 
carries him as gently as if he had been bred all his life to nurse 
babies. The smiling Sally (the Sally for the time being happens 
to be a very fresh, pink-cheeked, pretty little Sally) emerges from 
the kitchen, and introduces the young ladies, the governess, the 
maids, to their apartments. The eldest, a slim black-haired young 
lass of thirteen, frisks about the rooms, looks at all the pictures, 
runs in and out of the verandah, tries the piano, and bursts out 
laughing at its wheezy jingle (it had been poor Emma’s piano, 
bought for her on her seventeenth birthday, three weeks before she 
ran away with the ensign ; her music is still in the stand by it ; 
the Rev. Charles Honeyman has warbled sacred melodies over it, 
and Miss Honeyman considers it a delightful instrument), kisses her 
languid little brother laid on the sofa, and performs a hundred 
gay and agile motions suited to her age. 

“ Oh, what a piano ! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley’s 
voice ! ” 

“ My dear ! ” says mamma. The little languid boy bursts out 
into a jolly laugh. 

“ What funny pictures, mamma ! Action with Count de Grasse ; 
the Death of General Wolfe; a portrait of an officer, an old officer 
in blue, like grandpapa ; Brasenose College, Oxford : what a funny 
name ! ” 

At the idea of Brasenose College, another laugh comes from the 
invalid. “ I suppose they’ve all got brass noses there,” he says ; 
and he explodes at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, 
and mamma’s travelling-basket, which contains everything, produces 
a bottle of syrup, labelled “ Master A. Newcome. A teaspoonful to 
be taken when the cough is troublesome.” 

“Oh, the delightful sea ! the blue, the fresh, the ever free,” 
sings the young lady, with a shake. (I suppose the maritime song 
from which she quoted was just written at this time.) “ How much 
better this is than going home and seeing those horrid factories and 
chimneys ! I love Doctor Goodenough for sending us here. What 
a sweet house it is ! Everybody is happy in it ; even Miss Quigley 
is happy, mamma. What nice rooms ! What pretty chintz ! 
What a — oh, what a — comfortable sofa ! ” and she falls down on 
the sofa, which, truth to say, was the Rev. Charles Honeyman’s 
luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Downy of 
Christchurch, when that gentleman commoner was eliminated from 
the University. 

“The person of the house,” mamma says, “hardly comes up 
to Doctor Goodenough’s description of her. He says he re- 


100 THE NEW.COMES 

members her a pretty little woman when her father was his private 
tutor.” 

“ She has grown very much since,” says the girl. And an ex- 
plosion takes place from the sofa, where the little man is always 
ready to laugh at any joke, or anything like a joke, uttered by 
himself or by any of his family or friends. As for Doctor Good- 
enough, he says laughing has saved that boy’s life. 

“ She looks quite like a maid,” continues the lady. “ She has 
hard hands, and she called me mum always. I was quite disap- 
pointed in her.” And she subsides into a novel, with many of 
which kind of works, and with other volumes, and with workboxes, 
and with wonderful inkstands, portfolios, portable days of the month, 
scent-bottles, scissor-cases, gilt miniature easels displaying portraits, 
and countless gimcracks of travel, the rapid Kuhn has covered the 
tables in the twinkling of an eye. 

The person supposed to be the landlady enters the room at this 
juncture, and the lady rises to receive her. The little wag on the 
sofa puts his arm round his sister’s neck, and whispers, “ I say, 
Eth, isn’t she a pretty girl ? I shall write to Doctor Goodenough 
and tell him how much she’s grown” Convulsions follow this 
sally, to the surprise of Hannah, who says, “ Pooty little dear ! — 
what time will he have his dinner, mum ? ” 

“ Thank you, Miss Honey man, at two o’clock,” says the lady, 
with a bow of her head. “ There is a clergyman of your name in 
London ; is he a relation 1 ” The lady in her turn is astonished, 
for the tall person breaks out into a grin, and says, “ Law, mum, 
you’re speakin’ of Master Charles. He’s in London.” 

“ Indeed ! — of Master Charles ? ” 

“And you take me for missis, mum. I beg your pardon, 
mum,” cries Hannah. The invalid hits his sister in the side with 
a weak little fist. If laughter can cure, Salva est res , Doctor 
Goodenough’s patient is safe. “ Master Charles is missis’s brother, 
mum. I’ve got no brother, mum — never had no brother. Only 
one son, who’s in the Police, mum, thank you. And law bless me, 
I was going to forget ! If you please, mum, missis says, if you are 
quite rested, she will pay her duty to you, mum.” 

“ Oh, indeed,” says the lady, rather stiffly ; and, taking this for 
an acceptance of her mistress’s visit, Hannah retires. 

“ This Miss Honeyman seems to be a great personage,” says 
the lady. “If people let lodgings, why do they give themselves 
such airs ? ” 

“We never saw Monsieur de Boigne at Boulogne, mamma,” inter- 
poses the girl. 

“ Monsieur de Boigne, my dear Ethel ! Monsieur de Boigne is 


THE NEWCOMES 


101 


very well ; but — ” Here the door opens, and in a large cap 
bristling with ribands, with her best chestnut front, and her best 
black silk gown, on which her gold watch shines very splendidly, 
little Miss Honeyman makes her appearance, with a dignified curtsey 
to her lodger. 

That lady vouchsafes a very slight inclination of the head indeed, 
which she repeats when Miss Honeyman says, “I am glad to hear 
your Ladyship is pleased with the apartments.” 

“Yes, they will do very well, thank you,” answers the latter 
person gravely. 

“ And they have such a beautiful view of the sea ! ” cries Ethel. 

“ As if all the houses hadn’t a view of the sea, Ethel ! The 
price has been arranged, I think? My servants will require a 
comfortable room to dine in — by themselves, ma’am, if you please. 
My governess and the younger children will dine together. My 
daughter dines with me — and my little boy’s dinner will be ready 
at two o’clock precisely, if you please. It is now near one.” 

“ Am I to understand ? ” interposed Miss Honeyman. 

“ Oh ! I have no doubt we shall understand each other, ma’am,” 
cried Lady Ann Newcome (whose noble presence the acute reader 
has no doubt ere this divined and saluted). “ Doctor Goodenough 
has given me a most satisfactory account of you — more satisfactory 
perhaps than — than you are aware of.” Perhaps Lady Ann’s 
sentence was not going to end in a very satisfactory way for Miss 
Honeyman; but, awed by a peculiar look of resolution in the 
little lady, her lodger of an hour paused in whatever offensive 
remark she might have been about to make. “ It is as well that 
I at last have the pleasure of seeing you, that I may state what I 
want, and that we may, as you say, understand each other. Break- 
fast and tea, if you please, will be served in the same manner as 
dinner. And you will have the kindness to order fresh milk every 
morning for my little boy — ass’s milk — Doctor Goodenough has 
ordered ass’s milk. Anything further I want I will communicate 
through the person who spoke to you — Kuhn, Mr. Kuhn — and 
that will do.” 

A heavy shower of rain was descending at this moment, and 
little Miss Honeyman, looking at her lodger, who had sat down and 
taken up her book, said, “ Have your Ladyship’s servants unpacked 
your trunks ? ” 

“ What on earth, madam, have you — has that to do with the 
question ? ” 

“ They will be put to the trouble of packing again, I fear. I 
cannot provide — three times five are fifteen — fifteen separate meals 
for seven persons — besides those of my own family. If your 


102 


THE NEWCOMES 


servants cannot eat with mine, or in my kitchen, they and their 
mistress must go elsewhere. And the sooner the better, madam, 
the sooner the better ! ” says Miss Honeyman, trembling with in- 
dignation, and sitting down in a chair, spreading her silks. 

“ Do you know who I am ? ” asks Lady Ann, rising. 

“Perfectly well, madam,” says the other. “And had I known, 
you should never have come into my house, that’s more.” 

“ Madam ! ” cries the lady, on which the poor little invalid, 
scared and nervous, and hungry for his dinner, began to cry from 
his sofa. 

“ It will be a pity that the dear little boy should be disturbed. 
Dear little child, I have often heard of him, and of you, miss,” 
says the little householder, rising. “ I will get you some dinner, 
my dear, for Clive’s sake. And meanwhile your Ladyship will 
have the kindness to seek for some other apartments — for not a bit 
shall my fire cook for any one else of your company.” And with 
this the indignant little landlady sailed out of the room. 

“Gracious goodness! Who is the woman?” cries Lady Ann. 
“ I never was so insulted in my life.” 

“ 0 mamma, it was you began ! ” says downright Ethel. “ That 
is Hush, Alfred dear ! Hush, my darling ! ” 

“ Oh, it was mamma began ! I’m so hungry ! I’m so hungry ! ” 
howled the little man on the sofa — or off it rather — for he was now 
down on the ground, kicking away the shawls which enveloped him. 

“ What is it, my boy ? What is it, my blessed darling ? You 
shall have your dinner ! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys 
of my desk — there’s my watch — there are my rings. Let her take 
my all. The monster ! the child must live ! It can’t go away in 
such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a parasol, anything — I’ll 
go forth and get a lodging. I’ll beg my bread from house to house 
— if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear ! A little of the 
syrup, Alfred darling ; it’s very nice, love ! and come to youi* old 
mother — your poor old mother.” 

Alfred roared out, “No — it’s not n — ice; it’s n — a — a — asty ! 
I won’t have syrup. I will have dinner.” The mother, whose 
embraces the child repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at 
the bells, rang them all four vehemently, and ran downstairs to- 
wards the parlour, whence Miss Honeyman was issuing. 

The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, 
but had taken them in willingly enough on Doctor Goodenough’s 
recommendation. And it was not until one of the nurses entrusted 
with the care of Master Alfred’s dinner informed Miss Honeyman 
of the name of her guest, that she knew she was entertaining Lady 
Ann Newcome ; and that the pretty girl was the fair Miss Ethel ; 


THE NEWCOMES 


103 


the little sick boy, the little Alfred of whom his cousin spoke, and 
of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in his rude way, 
as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run off to St. James’s 
Street for a chicken — she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a 
bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding as she only knew how 
to make batter-puddings — then she went to array herself in her 
best clothes, as we have seen, — as we have heard rather (Goodness 
forbid that we should see Miss Honeyman arraying herself, or pene- 
trate that chaste mystery, her toilette !) — then she came to wait 
upon Lady Ann, not a little flurried as to the result of that queer 
interview — then she whisked out of the drawing-room, as before 
has been shown ; and, finding the chicken roasted to a turn, the 
napkin and tray ready spread by Hannah the neat-handed, she was 
bearing them up to the little patient when the frantic parent met 
her on the stair. 

“ Is it — is it for my child 1 ” cried Lady Ann, reeling against 
the banister. 

“Yes, it’s for the child,” says Miss Honeyman, tossing up her 
head. “ But nobody else has anything in the house.” 

“ God bless you — God bless you ! A mother’s bl — 1 — essings 
go with you,” gurgled the lady, who was not, it must be confessed, 
a woman of strong moral character. 

It was good to see the little man eating the fowl. Ethel, who 
had never cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers 
now and then with her brother’s and her governess’s penknives, 
bethought her of asking Miss Honeyman to carve the chicken. 
Lady Ann, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sat looking on 
at the ravishing scene. 

“ Why did you not let us know you were Clive’s aunt 1 ” Ethel 
asked, putting out her hand. The old lady took hers very kindly, 
and said, “Because you didn’t give me time, — and do you love 
Clive, my dear 1 ” 

The reconciliation between Miss Honeyman and her lodger was 
perfect. Lady Ann w T rote a quire of note-paper off to Sir Brian 
for that day’s post — only she was too late, as she always was. 
Mr. Kuhn perfectly delighted Miss Honeyman that evening by his 
droll sayings, jokes, and pronunciation, and by his praises of Master 
Glive, as he called him. He lived out of the house, did everything 
for everybody, was never out of the way when wanted and never 
in the way when not wanted. Ere long Miss Honeyman got out 
a bottle of the famous Madeira which her Colonel sent her, and 
treated him to a glass in her own room. Kuhn smacked his lips, 
and held out the glass again. The rogue knew good wine. 


CHAPTER X 


ETHEL AND HER RELATIONS 


OR four-and-twenty successive hours Lady Ann Newcome was 



perfectly in raptures with her new lodgings, and every person 


and thing which they contained. The drawing-rooms were 
fitted with the greatest taste; the dinner was exquisite. Were 
there ever such delicious veal-cutlets, such verdant French beans ? 
“Why do we have those odious French cooks, my dear, with their 
shocking principles — the principles of all Frenchmen are shocking — 
and the dreadful bills they bring us in ; and their consequential airs 
and graces] I am determined to part with Brignol. I have 
written to your father this evening to give Brignol warning. When 
did he ever give us veal-cutlets ? What can be nicer 1 ” 

“ Indeed they were very good,” said Miss Ethel, who had 
mutton five times a week at one o’clock. “I am so glad you 
like the house, and Clive, and Miss Honeyman.” 

“ Like her ! the dear little old woman. I feel as if she had 
been my friend all my life ! I feel quite drawn towards her. What 
a wonderful coincidence that Dr. Goodenough should direct us to 
this very house ! I have written to your father about it. And to 
think that I should have written to Clive at this very house, and 
quite forgotten Miss Honeyman’s name — and such an odd name 
too. I forget everything, everything ! You know I forgot your 
Aunt Louisa’s husband’s name ; and when I was godmother to her 
baby, and the clergyman said, ‘ What is the infant’s name ? ’ I 
said, ‘ Really I forget.’ And so I did. He was a London clergy- 
man, but I forget at what church. Suppose it should be this 
very Mr. Honeyman ! It may have been, you know ; and then the 
coincidence would be still more droll. That tall, old, nice-looking 
respectable person, with a mark on her nose, the housekeeper — 
what is her name? — seems a most invaluable person. I -think I 
shall ask her to come to us. I am sure she would save me I don’t 
know how much money every week ; and I am certain Mrs. Trotter 
is making a fortune by us. I shall write to your papa, and ask 
him permission to ask this person.” Ethel’s mother was constantly 
falling in love with her new acquaintances ; their men-servants and 


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105 


their maid-servants, their horses and ponies, and the visitor within 
their gates. She would ask strangers to Newcome, hug and embrace 
them on Sunday ; not speak to them on Monday ; and on Tuesday 
behave so rudely to them, that they were gone before Wednesday. 
Her daughter had had so many governesses — all darlings during 
the first week, and monsters afterwards— that the poor child pos- 
sessed none of the accomplishments of her age. She could not 
play on the piano ; she could not speak French well ; she could not 
tell you when gunpowder was invented ; she had not the faintest 
idea of the date of the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth 
went round the sun, or vice versd. She did not know the number 
of counties in England, Scotland, and Wales, let alone Ireland ; she 
did not know the difference between latitude and longitude. She 
had had so many governesses : their accounts differed ; poor Ethel 
was bewildered by a multiplicity of teachers, and thought herself 
a monster of ignorance. They gave her a book at a Sunday School, 
and little girls of eight years old answered questions of which she 
knew nothing. The place swam before her. She could not see 
the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and pretty faces. The 
rosy little children holding up their eager hands, and crying out 
the answer to this question and that, seemed mocking her. She 
seemed to read in the book, “ 0 Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce ! ” 
She went home silent in the carriage, and burst into bitter tears 
on her bed. Naturally a haughty girl of the highest spirit, resolute 
and imperious, this little visit to the parish school taught Ethel 
lessons more valuable than ever so much arithmetic and geography. 
— Clive has told me a story of her in her youth, which, perhaps, 
may apply to some others of the youthful female aristocracy. She 
used to walk, with other select young ladies and gentlemen, their 
nurses and governesses, in a certain reserved plot of ground railed 
off from Hyde Park, whereof some of the lucky dwellers in the 
neighbourhood of Apsley House have a key. In this garden, at 
the age of nine or thereabout, she had contracted an intimate 
friendship with the Lord Hercules O’Ryan, as every one of my 
gentle readers knows, one of the sons of the Marquis of Bally- 
shannon. The Lord Hercules was a year younger than Miss Ethel 
Newcome, which may account for the passion which grew up between 
these young persons; it being a provision in nature that a boy 
always falls in love with a girl older than himself, or rather, 
perhaps, that a girl bestows her affections on a little boy, who 
submits to receive them. 

One day Sir Brian Newcome announced his intention to go to 
Newcome that very morning, taking his family, and of course Ethel, 
with him. She was inconsolable. “What will Lord Hercules do 


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when he finds I am gone ? ” she asked of her nurse. The nurse, 
endeavouring to soothe her, said, “ Perhaps his Lordship would 
know nothing about the circumstance.” “ He will,” said Miss 
Ethel — “ he'll read it in the newspaper” My Lord Hercules, 
it is to be hoped, strangled this infant passion in the cradle ; 

having long since married Isabella, only daughter of Grains, 

Esquire, of Drayton, Windsor, a partner in the great brewery of 
Foker & Co. 

When Ethel was thirteen years old, she had grown to be such 
a tall girl, that she overtopped her companions by a head or more, 
and morally perhaps, also, felt herself too tall for their society. 
“ Fancy myself,” she thought, “ dressing a doll like Lily Putland, 
or wearing a pinafore like Lucy Tucker ! ” She did not care for 
their sports. She could not walk with them : it seemed as if every 
one stared ; nor dance with them at the academy ; nor attend the 
Cours de Literature Universelle et de Science Comprehensive of 
the professor then the mode — the smallest girls took her up in the 
class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things they bade 
her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex, when, under 
the guidance of their respected governesses, the girls came to tea at 
six o’clock, dancing, charades, and so forth, Ethel herded not with 
the children of her own age, nor yet with the teachers who sit apart 
at these assemblies, imparting to each other their little wrongs ; but 
Ethel romped with the little children — the rosy little trots — and 
took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories. By 
these she was adored, and loved like a mother almost, for as such 
the hearty, kindly girl showed herself to them ; but at home she 
was alone, farouche , and intractable, and did battle with the gover- 
nesses, and overcame them one after another. I break the promise 
of a former page, and am obliged to describe the youthful days of 
more than one person who is to take a share in this story. Not 
always doth the writer know whither the divine Muse leadeth him. 
But of this be sure — she is as inexorable as Truth. We must tell 
our tale as she imparts it to us, and go on or turn aside at her 
bidding. 

Here she ordains that we should speak of other members of 
this family, whose history we chronicle, and it behoves us to say a 
word regarding the Earl of Kew, the head of the noble house into 
which Sir Brian Newcome had married. 

When we read in the fairy stories that the King and Queen, 
who lived once upon a time, build a castle of steel, defended by 
moats and sentinels innumerable, in which they place their darling 
only child, the Prince or Princess, whose birth has blessed them 
after so many years of marriage, and whose christening feast has 


THE NEWCOMES 


107 


been interrupted by the cantankerous humour of that notorious old 
fairy who always persists in coming, although she has not received 
any invitation, to the baptismal ceremony : when Prince Prettyman 
is locked up in the steel tower, provided only with the most whole- 
some food, the most edifying educational works, and the most vener- 
able old tutor to instruct and to bore him, we know, as a matter 
of course, that the steel bolts and brazen bars will one day be of 
no avail, the old tutor will go off in a doze, and the moats and 
drawbridges will either be passed by his Royal Highness’s implacable 
enemies, or crossed by the young scapegrace himself, who is deter- 
mined to outwit his guardians, and see the wicked world. The old 
King and Queen always come in and find the chambers empty, the 
saucy heir-apparent flown, the porters and sentinels drunk, the 
ancient tutor asleep; they tear their venerable wigs in anguish, 
they kick the major-domo downstairs, they turn the duenna out 
of doors — the toothless old dragon ! There is no resisting fate. 
The Princess will slip out of window by the rope-ladder ; the Prince 
will be off to pursue his pleasures, and sow his wild oats at the 
appointed season. How many of our English princes have been 
coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in 
inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons 
of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, 
and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished 
the world by their extravagance and their frolics ! What a wild 
rogue was that Prince Harry, son of the austere sovereign who 
robbed Richard the Second of his crown, — the youth who took 
purses on Gadshill, frequented Eastcheap taverns with Colonel 
Falstaff and worse company, and boxed Chief-Justice Gascoigne’s 
ears ! What must have been the venerable Queen Charlotte’s state 
of mind when she heard of the courses of her beautiful young 
Prince ; of his punting at gaming-tables ; of his dealings with horse- 
jockeys ; of his awful doings witli Perdita 1 Besides instances taken 
from our Royal Family, could we not draw examples from our 
respected nobility % There was that young Lord Warwick, Mr. 
Addison’s stepson. We know that his mother was severe, and his 
stepfather a most eloquent moralist, yet the young gentleman’s 
career was shocking, positively shocking. He boxed the watch ; 
he fuddled himself at taverns ; he was no better than a Mohock. 
The chronicles of that day contain accounts of many a mad prank 
which he played, as we have legends of a still earlier date of the 
lawless freaks of the wild Prince and Poins. Our people have never 
looked very unkindly on these frolics. A young nobleman, full of 
life and spirits, generous of his money, jovial in his humour, ready 
with his sword, frank, handsome, prodigal, courageous, always finds 


108 


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favour. Young Scapegrace rides a steeplechase or beats a bargeman, 
and the crowd applauds him. Sages and seniors shake their heads, 
and look at him not unkindly ; even stern old female moralists are 
disarmed at the sight of youth, and gallantry, and beauty I know 
very well that Charles Surface is a sad dog, and Tom Jones no 
better than he should be ; but, in spite of such critics as Doctor 
Johnson and Colonel N ewcome, most of us have a sneaking regard 
for honest Tom, and hope Sophia will be happy, and Tom will end 
well at last. 

Five-and-twenty years ago the young Earl of Kew came upon 
the town, which speedily rang with the feats of his Lordship. He 
began life time enough to enjoy certain pleasures from which our 
young aristocracy of the present day seem, alas ! to be cut off. So 
much more peaceable and polished do we grow, so much does the 
spirit of the age appear to equalise all ranks ; so strongly has the 
good sense of society, to which, in the end, gentlemen of the very 
highest fashion must bow, put its veto upon practices and amuse- 
ments with which our fathers were familiar. At that time the 
Sunday newspapers contained many and many exciting reports of 
boxing-matches. Bruising was considered a fine manly old English 
custom. Boys at public schools fondly perused histories of the 
noble science, from the redoubtable days of Broughton and Slack, 
to the heroic times of Dutch Sam and the Game Chicken. Young 
gentlemen went eagerly to Moulsey to see the Slasher punch the 
Pet’s head, or the Negro beat the Jew’s nose to a jelly. The island 
rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail- 
coaches ; a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, 
before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. 
To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and 
guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the 
jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under 
the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long 
ago. The Road was an institution, the Ring was an institution. 
Men rallied round them; and, not without a kind conservatism, 
expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country, 
and the evils which would occur when they should be no more : — 
decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of 
horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a black eye 
was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman ; to drive a stage- 
coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there 
any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place 
of a stoker 1 ? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old 
drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where 
are you, 0 rattling “ Quicksilver,” 0 swift “ Defiance ” ? You are 


THE NEWCOMES 109 

passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are 
out, and the music of your horns has died away. 

Just at the ending of that old time, Lord Kew’s life began. 
That kindly middle-aged gentleman whom his county knows ; that 
good landlord, and friend of all his tenantry round about ; that 
builder of churches, and indefatigable visitor of schools ; that writer 
of letters to the farmers of his shire, so full of sense and benevo- 
lence; who wins prizes at agricultural shows, and even lectures 
at county-town institutes in his modest, pleasant way, was the 
wild young Lord Kew of a quarter of a century back ; who kept 
racehorses, patronised boxers, fought a duel, thrashed a Life- 
Guardsman, gambled furiously at Crockford’s, and did who knows 
what besides. 

His mother, a devout lady, nursed her son and his property 
carefully during the young gentleman’s minority : keeping him and 
his younger brother away from all mischief, under the eyes of the 
most careful pastors and masters. She learnt Latin with the 
boys, she taught them to play on the piano ; she enraged old 
Lady Kew, the children’s grandmother, who prophesied that her 
daughter-in-law would make milksops of her sons, to whom the 
old lady was never reconciled until after my Lord’s entry at 
Christchurch, where he began to distinguish himself very soon 
after his first term. He drove tandems, kept hunters, gave dinners, 
scandalised the Dean, screwed up the tutor’s door, and agonised 
his mother at home by his lawless proceedings. He quitted the 
University, after a very brief sojourn at that seat of learning. It 
may be the Oxford authorities requested his Lordship to retire : let 
bygones be bygones. His youthful son, the present Lord Walham, 
is now at Christchurch, reading with the greatest assiduity. Let 
us not be too particular in narrating his father’s unedifying frolics 
of a quarter of a century ago. 

Old Lady Kew, who, in conjunction with Mrs. Newcome, had 
made the marriage between Mr. Brian Newcome and her daughter, 
always despised her son-in-law ; and being a frank, open person, 
uttering her mind always, took little pains to conceal her opinion 
regarding him or any other individual. “ Sir Brian Newcome,” 
she would say, “ is one of the most stupid and respectable of men ; 
Ann is clever, but has not a grain of common sense. They make 
a very well-assorted couple. Her flightiness would have driven 
any man crazy who had an opinion of his own. She would have 
ruined any poor man of her own rank ; as it is, I have given her a 
husband exactly suited for her. He pays the bills, does not see 
how absurd she is, keeps order in the establishment, and checks 
her follies. She wanted to marry her cousin, Tom Poyntz, when 


10 


THE NEWCOMES 


they were both very young, and proposed to die of a broken heart 
when I arranged her match with Mr. Newcome. A broken fiddle- 
stick ! — she would have ruined Tom Poyntz in a year, and has no 
more idea of the cost of a leg of mutton than I have of algebra.” 

The Countess of Kew loved Brighton, and preferred living there 
even at the season when Londoners find such especial charms in 
their own city. “London after Easter,” the old lady said, “was 
intolerable. Pleasure then becomes a business so oppressive that 
all good company is destroyed by it. Half the men are sick with 
the feasts which they eat day after day. The women are thinking 
of the half-dozen parties they have to go to in the course of the 
night. The young girls are thinking of their partners and their 
toilettes. Intimacy becomes impossible, and quiet enjoyment of 
life. On the other hand, the crowd of bourgeois has not invaded 
Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flys full of stockbrokers’ 
wives and children ; and you can take the air in your chair upon 
the Chain-pier without being stifled by the cigars of the odious 
shopboys from London.” So Lady Kew’s name was usually 
amongst the earliest which the Brighton newspapers recorded 
amongst the arrivals. 

Her only unmarried daughter, Lady Julia, lived with her Lady- 
ship. Poor Lady Julia had suffered early from a spine disease, 
which had kept her for many years to her couch. Being always 
at home, and under her mother’s eyes, she was the old lady’s victim, 
her pincushion, into which Lady Kew plunged a hundred little 
points of sarcasm daily. As children are sometimes brought before 
magistrates, and their poor little backs and shoulders laid bare, 
covered with bruises and lashes which brutal parents have inflicted, 
so, I dare say, if there had been any tribunal or judge before whom 
this poor patient lady’s heart could have been exposed, it would 
have been found scarred all over with numberless ancient wounds, 
and bleeding from yesterday’s castigation. Old Lady Kew’s tongue 
was a dreadful thong, which made numbers of people wince. She 
was not altogether cruel, but she knew the dexterity with which 
she wielded her lash, and liked to exercise it. Poor Lady Julia 
was always at hand, when her mother was minded to try her 
powers. 

Lady Kew had just made herself comfortable at Brighton, when 
her little grandson’s illness brought Lady Ann Newcome and her 
family down to the sea. Lady Kew was almost scared back to 
London again, or blown over the water to Dieppe. She had never 
had the measles. “Why did not Ann carry the child to some 
other place 1 J ulia, you will on no account go and see that little 
pestiferous swarm of Newcomes, unless you want to send me out 


THE NEWCOMES 


111 


of the world — which I dare say you do, for I am a dreadful plague 
to you, I know, and my death would be a release to you.” 

“ You see Doctor H., who visits the child every day,” cries poor 
Pincushion ; “ you are not afraid when he comes.” 

“ Doctor H. ? Doctor H. comes to cure me, or to tell me the 
news, or to flatter me, or to feel my pulse and to pretend to pre- 
scribe, or to take his guinea ; of course Doctor H. must go to see 
all sorts of people in all sorts of diseases. You would not have me 
be such a brute as to order him not to attend my own grandson ? 
I forbid you to go to Ann’s house. You will send one of the men 
every day to inquire. Let the groom go — yes, Charles — he will 
not go into the house. He will ring the bell and wait outside. 
He had better ring the bell at the area — I suppose there is an 
area — and speak to the servants through the bars, and bring us 
word how Alfred is.” Poor Pincushion felt fresh compunctions ; 
she had met the children, and kissed the baby, and held kind 
Ethel’s hand in hers that day, as she was out in her chair. There 
was no use, however, to make this confession. Is she the only good 
woman or man of whom domestic tyranny has made a hypocrite ? 

Charles, the groom, brings back perfectly favourable reports of 
Master Alfred’s health that day, which Doctor H., in the course 
of his visit, confirms. The child is getting well rapidly; eating 
like a little ogre. His cousin Lord Kew has been to see him. He 
is the kindest of men, Lord Kew; he brought the little man 
“ Tom and Jerry ” with the pictures. The boy is delighted with 
the pictures. 

“Why has not Kew come to see me? When did he come? 
Write him a note, and send for him instantly, Julia. Did you 
know he was here ? ” 

Julia says that she had but that moment read in the Brighton 
papers the arrival of the Earl of Kew and the Honourable J. Belsize 
at the “Albion.” 

“ I am sure they are here for some mischief,” cries the old 
lady, delighted. “ Whenever Kew and Jack Belsize are together, I 
know there is some wickedness planning. What do you know, 
Doctor ? I see by your face you know something. Do tell it me, 
that I may write it to his odious psalm-singing mother.” 

Doctor H.’s face does indeed wear a knowing look. He 
simpers and says, “ I did see Lord Kew driving this morning, first 
with the Honourable Mr. Belsize, and afterwards ” — here he glances 
towards Lady Julia, as if to say, “ Before an unmarried lady, I do 
not like to tell your Ladyship with whom I saw Lord Kew driving, 
after he had left the Honourable Mr. Belsize, who went to play a 
match with Captain Huxtable at tennis.” 


112 


THE NEWCOMES 


“Are you afraid to speak before Julia?” cries the elder lady. 
“Why, bless my soul, she is forty years old, and has heard 
everything that can be heard. Tell me about Kew this instant, 
Doctor H.” 

The Doctor blandly acknowledges that Lord Kew had been 
driving Madame Pozzoprofondo, the famous contralto of the Italian 
Opera, in his phaeton for two hours, in the face of all Brighton. 

“ Yes, Doctor,” interposes Lady Julia, blushing ; “ but Signor 
Pozzoprofondo was in the carriage too — a — a — sitting behind with 
the groom. He was indeed, mamma.” 

“Julia, vous n’etes qvlune bete” says Lady Kew, shrugging her 
shoulders, and looking at her daughter from under her bushy black 
eyebrows. Her Ladyship, a sister of the late lamented Marquis of 
Steyne, possessed no small share of the wit and intelligence, and 
a considerable resemblance to the features of that distinguished 
nobleman. 

Lady Kew bids her daughter take a pen and write: — “ Monsieur 
le Mauvais Sujet, — Gentlemen who wish to take the sea air in 
private, or to avoid their relations, had best go to other places than 
Brighton, where their names are printed in the newspapers. If you 
are not drowned in a pozzo ” 

“ Mamma ! ” interposes the secretary. 

“ — in a pozzo profondo, you will please come to dine with two 
old women at half-past seven. You may bring Mr. Belsize, and 
must tell us a hundred stories. — Yours, &c., L. Kew.” 

Julia wrote all the letter as her mother dictated it, save only 
one sentence, and the note was sealed and despatched to my Lord 
Kew, who came to dinner with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked 
to dine with Lady Kew. He said “ she was an old dear, and the 
wickedest old woman in all England ! ” and he liked to dine with 
Lady Julia, who was “a poor suffering dear, and the best woman 
in all England.” Jack Belsize liked every one, and every one 
liked him. 

Two evenings afterwards the young men repeated their visit to 
Lady Kew, and this time Lord Kew was loud in praises of his 
cousins of the house of Newcome. 

“Not of the eldest, Barnes, surely, my dear?” cries Lady Kew. 

“ No, confound him ! not Barnes.” 

“No, d it, not Barnes I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,” 

broke in Jack Belsize. “ I can get on with most men ; but that 
little Barney is too odious a little snob.” 

“ A little what — Mr. Belsize ? ” 

“A little snob, ma’am. I have no other word, though he is 


THE NEWCOMES 


113 


your grandson. I never heard him say a good word of any mortal 
soul, or do a kind action.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Belsize,” says the lady. 

“ But the others are capital. There is that little chap who has 
just had the measles — he’s a dear little brick. And as for Miss 
Ethel ” 

“ Ethel is a trump, ma’am,” says Lord Kew, slapping his hand 
on his knee. 

“ Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a trump, I think you say,” 
remarks Lady Kew, nodding approval; “and Barnes is a snob. 
This is very satisfactory to know.” 

“ We met the children out to-day,” cries the enthusiastic Kew, 
“as I was driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked 
to ’em.” 

“Governess an uncommonly nice woman — oldish, but — I beg 
your pardon, Lady Julia,” cries the inopportune Jack Belsize — 
“ I’m always putting my foot in it.” 

“ Putting your foot into what 1 Go on, Kew.” 

“Well, we met the whole posse of children; and the little 
fellow wanted a drive, and I said I would drive him and Ethel 
too, if she would come. Upon my word she is as pretty a girl 
as you can see on a summer’s day. And the governess said ‘No,’ 
of course. Governesses always do. But I said I was her uncle, 
and Jack paid her such a fine compliment, that the young woman 
was mollified, and the children took their seats beside me, and 
Jack went behind.” 

“ Where Monsieur Pozzoprofondo sits, — bon” 

“We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to 
grief. My horses are young, and when they get on the grass they 
are as if they were mad. It was very wrong ; I know it was.” 

“D — d rash,” interposes Jack. “He had nearly broken all 
our necks.” 

“And my brother George would have been Lord Kew,” con- 
tinued the young Earl, with a quiet smile. “ What an escape for 
him ! The horses ran away — ever so far — and I thought the 
carriage must upset. The poor little boy, who has lost his pluck 
in the fever, began to cry ; but that young girl, though she was 
as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment, and sat in her 
place like a man. We met nothing, luckily ; and I pulled the 
horses in after a mile or two, and I drove ’em into Brighton as 
quiet as if I had been driving a hearse. And that little trump of 
an Ethel, what do you think she said? She said, ‘I was not 
frightened, but you must not tell mamma.’ My aunt, it appears, 
was in a dreadful commotion — I ought to have thought of that.” 

8 H 


114 


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“ Lady Ann is a ridiculous old dear. I beg your pardon, Lady 
Kew,” here breaks in Jack the apologiser. 

“ There is a brother of Sir Brian Newcome’s staying with them,” 
Lord Kew proceeds ; “ an East India Colonel — a very fine-looking 
old boy.” 

“Smokes awfully, row about it in the hotel. Go on, Kew; 
beg your ” 

“ This gentleman was on the look-out for us, it appears, for 
when we came in sight he despatched a boy who was with him, 
running like a lamplighter, back to my aunt, to say all was well. 
And he took little Alfred out of the carriage, and then helped out 
Ethel, and said, ‘ My dear, you are too pretty to scold ; but you 
have given us all a belle peur .’ And then he made me and Jack 
a low bow, and stalked into the lodgings.” 

“I think you do deserve to be whipped, both of you,” cries 
Lady Kew. 

“We went up and made our peace with my aunt, and were 
presented in form to the Colonel and his youthful cub.” 

“As fine a fellow as ever I saw, and as fine a boy as ever I 
saw,” cries Jack Belsize. “The young chap is a great hand at 
drawing — upon my life the best drawings I ever saw. And 
he was making a picture for little What-d’you-call-’em. And Miss 
Newcome was looking over them. And Lady Ann pointed out 
the group to me, and said how pretty it was. She is uncommonly 
sentimental, you know, Lady Ann.” 

“ My daughter Ann is the greatest fool in the three kingdoms,” 
cried Lady Kew, looking fiercely over her spectacles. And Julia 
was instructed to write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel 
should be sent to see her grandmother : — Ethel, who rebelled against 
the grandmother, and always fought on her Aunt Julia’s side, when 
the weaker was oppressed by the older and stronger lady. 


CHAPTER XI 


A T MRS. RIDLEY’S 


AINT PEDRO of Alcantara, as I have read in a Life of St. 



Theresa, informed that devout lady that he had passed forty 


years of his life sleeping only an hour and a half each day 
his cell was but four feet and a half long, so that he never lay 
down ; his pillow was a wooden log in the stone wall ; he ate but 
once in three days ; he was for three years in a convent of his order 
without knowing any one of his brethren except by the sound of 
their voices, for he never during this period took his eyes olf the 
ground : he always walked barefoot, and was but skin and bone 
when he died. The eating only once in three days, so he told his 
sister Saint, was by no means impossible, if you began the regimen 
in your youth. To conquer sleep was the hardest of all austerities 
which he practised : I fancy the pious individual so employed, day 
after day, night after night, on his knees, or standing up in devout 
meditation in the cupboard — his dwelling-place; bareheaded and 
barefooted, walking over rocks, briars, mud, sharp stones (picking 
out the very worst places, let us trust, with his downcast eyes), 
under the bitter snow, or the drifting rain, or the scorching sun- 
shine — I fancy Saint Pedro of Alcantara, and contrast him with such 
a personage as the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel, Mayfair. 

His hermitage is situated in Walpole Street, let us say, on the 
second floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman’s 
butler, whose wife takes care of the lodgings. His cells consist of 
a refectory, a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory where he keeps 
his shower-bath and boots — the pretty boots trimly stretched on 
boot-trees and blacked to a nicety (not varnished) by the boy who 
waits on him. The barefooted business may suit superstitious ages 
and gentlemen of Alcantara, but does not become Mayfair and the 
nineteenth century. If Saint Pedro walked the earth now with his 
eyes to the ground he would know fashionable divines by the way 
in which they were shod. Charles Honeyman’s is a sweet foot, I 
have no doubt as delicate and plump and rosy as the white hand, 
with its two rings, which he passes in impassioned moments through 
his slender flaxen hair 


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A sweet odour pervades his sleeping apartment — not that 
peculiar and delicious fragrance with which the Saints of the Roman 
Church are said to gratify the neighbourhood where they repose — 
but oils, redolent of the richest perfumes of Macassar, essences (from 
Truefitt’s or Delcroix’s) into which a thousand flowers have expressed 
their sweetest breath, await his meek head on rising; and infuse 
the pocket-handkerchief with which he dries and draws so many 
tears. For he cries a good deal in his sermons, to which the ladies 
about him contribute showers of sympathy. 

By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of 
an ecclesiastical pattern, by some of the faithful who sit at his feet. 
They come to him in anonymous parcels ; they come to him in silver 
paper ; boys in buttons (pages who minister to female grace !) leave 
them at the door for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without 
a word. Purses are sent to him, penwipers, a portfolio with the 
Honeyman arms ; yea, braces have been known to reach him by the 
post (in his days of popularity) ; and flowers, and grapes, and jelly 
when he was ill, and throat comforters, and lozenges for his dear 
bronchitis. In one of his drawers is the rich silk cassock presented 
to him by his congregation at Leatherhead (when the young curate 
quitted that parish for London duty), and On his breakfast-table the 
silver teapot, once filled with sovereigns and presented by the same 
devotees. The devoteapot he has, but the sovereigns, where are 
they ? 

What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, 
who eats once in three days ! At one time, if Honeyman could 
have drunk tea three times in an evening, he might have had it. 
The glass on his chimneypiece is crowded with invitations, not 
merely cards of ceremony (of which there are plenty), but dear little 
confidential notes from sweet friends of his congregation. “ Oh, 
dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes Blanche, “ what a sermon that was ! 
I cannot go to bed to-night without thanking you for it.” “ Do, 
do, dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes Beatrice, “lend me that delightful 
sermon. And can you come and drink tea with me and Selina, and 
my aunt ? Papa and mamma dine out, but you know I am always 
your faithful Chesterfield Street.” And so on. He has all the 
domestic accomplishments : he plays on the violoncello ; he sings a 
delicious second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a 
thousand anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories (of the utmost 
correctness, you understand), with which he entertains females of 
all ages; suiting his conversation to stately matrons, deaf old 
dowagers (who can hear his clear voice better than the loudest roar 
of their stupid sons-in-law), mature spinsters, young beauties dancing 
through the season, even rosy little slips out of the nursery, who 


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cluster round his beloved feet. Societies fight for him to preach 
their charity sermon. You read in the papers : “ The Wapping 
Hospital for Wooden-legged Seamen. On Sunday the 23rd, Sermons 
will be preached in behalf of this charity, by the Lord Bishop of 
Tobago in the morning, in the afternoon by the Rev. C. Honey- 
man, A.M., Incumbent of,” &c. “ Clergymen’s Grandmothers’ Fund. 
Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will be preached on 
Sunday, 4th May, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Pimlico and the 
Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M.” When the Dean of Pimlico has his 
illness, many people, think Honeyman will have the Deanery ; that 
he ought to have it a hundred female voices vow and declare ; 
though it is said that a right reverend head at head-quarters shakes 
dubiously when his name is mentioned for preferment. His name 
is spread wide, and not only women, but men come to hear him. 
Members of Parliament, even Cabinet Ministers, sit under him. 
Lord Dozeley, of course, is seen in a front pew : where was a public 
meeting without Lord Dozeley? The men come away from his 
sermons and say, “ It’s very pleasant, but I don’t know what the 
deuce makes all you women crowd so to hear the man.” “ Oh, 
Charles ! if you would but go oftener ! ” sighs Lady Ann Maria. 
“ Can’t you speak to the Home Secretary ? Can’t you do some- 
thing for him?” “We can ask him to dinner next Wednesday if 
you like,” says Charles. “ They say he’s a pleasant fellow out of the 
wood. Besides, there is no use in doing anything for him,” Charles 
goes on. “ He can’t make less than a thousand a year out of his 
chapel, and that is better than anything any one can give him. — A thou- 
sand a year, besides the rent of the wine-vaults below the chapel.” 

“ Don’t, Charles ! ” says his wife, with a solemn look. “ Don’t 
ridicule things in that way.” 

“ Confound it ! there are wine-vaults under the chapel,” answers 
downright Charles. “ I saw the name Sherrick & Co. ; offices, a 
green door, and a brass-plate. It’s better to sit over vaults with 
wine in them than coffins. I wonder whether it’s the Sherrick 
with whom Kew and Jack Belsize had that ugly row ? ” 

“ What ugly row ? — don’t say ugly row. It is not a nice word 
to hear the children use. Go on, my darlings. What was the 
dispute of Lord Kew and Mr. Belsize, and this Mr. Sherrick ? ” 

“ It was all about pictures, and about horses, and about money, 
and about one other subject which enters into every row that I ever 
heard of.” 

“ And what is that, dear ? ” asks the innocent lady, hanging on 
her husband’s arm, and quite pleased to have led him to church 
and brought him thence. “ And what is it that enters into every 
row, as you call it, Charles ? ” 


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“ A tvoman, my love,” answers the gentleman, behind whom we 
have been in imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman’s 
church on a Sunday in June : as the whole pavement blooms with 
artificial flowers and fresh bonnets ; as there is a buzz and cackle 
all around regarding the sermon ; as carriages drive off ; as lady- 
dowagers walk home ; as prayer-books and footmen’s sticks gleam 
in the sun; as little boys with baked mutton and potatoes pass 
from the courts ; as children issue from the public-houses with pots 
of beer ; as the Reverend Charles Honey man, who has been drawing 
tears in the sermon, and has seen, not without complacent throbs, 
a Secretary of State in the pew beneath him, divests himself of his 
rich silk cassock in the vestry, before he walks away to his neigh- 
bouring hermitage — where have we placed it? — in Walpole Street. 
I wish Saint Pedro of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder 
of mutton with the baked potatoes, and a drink of that frothing 
beer. See, yonder trots Lord Dozeley, who has been asleep for an 
hour with his head against the wood, like Saint Pedro of Alcantara. 

An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole 
chapel is clear, and survey Lady Whittlesea’s monument at their 
leisure, and other hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct 
frequenters of the chapel. Whose was that face which Colonel 
Newcome thought he recognised — that of a stout man who came 
down from the organ-gallery ? Could it be Broff the bass singer, 
who delivered the “ Red-Cross Knight ” with such applause at the 
“ Cave of Harmony,” and who has been singing in this place ? 
There are some chapels in London where, the function over, one 
almost expects to see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews 
and galleries, as they do at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. 

The writer of these veracious pages was once walking through a 
splendid English palace standing amidst parks and gardens, than 
which none more magnificent has been since the days of Aladdin, in 
company with a melancholy friend, who viewed all things darkly 
through his gloomy eyes. The housekeeper, pattering on before us 
from chamber to chamber, was expatiating upon the magnificence of 
this picture ; the beauty of that statue ; the marvellous richness of 
these hangings and carpets; the admirable likeness of the late 
Marquis, by Sir Thomas ; of his father the fifth Earl, by Sir Joshua, 
and so on ; when, in the very richest room of the whole castle, Hicks 
— such was my melancholy companion’s name — stopped the cicerone 
in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice, “And now, madam, will 
you show us the closet where the skeleton is ? ” The scared func- 
tionary paused in the midst of her harangue ; that article was not 
inserted in the catalogue which she daily utters to visitors for their 
half-crown. Hicks’s question brought a darkness down upon the 


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119 

hall where we were standing. We did not see the room : and yet 
I have no doubt there is such a one ; and ever after, when I have 
thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees, 
under which the dappled deer are browsing ; of the terraces gleam- 
ing with statues, and bright with a hundred thousand flowers ; of 
the bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle 
windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with 
happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of 
music * — always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard, it is to 
think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which 
the lordly owner opens shuddering — after midnight — when he is 
sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when 
beauties are sleeping around him unconscious, and revellers are at 
rest. 0 Mrs. Housekeeper, all the other keys hast thou ; but that 
key thou hast not ! 

Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the 
noble Marquis of Carabas ? At night, when all the house is asleep 
but you, don’t you get up and peep into yours ? When you in your 
turn are slumbering, up gets Mrs. Brown from your side, steals 
downstairs like Amina to her ghoul, clicks open the secret door, 
and looks into her dark depository. Did she tell you of that little 
affair with Smith long before she knew you ? Psha ! who knows 
any one save himself alone? Who, in showing his house to the 
closest and dearest, doesn’t keep back the key of a closet or two ? 
I think of a lovely reader laying down the page and looking over 
at her unconscious husband, asleep, perhaps, after dinner. Yes, 
madam, a closet he hath : and you, who pry into everything, shall 
never have the key of it. I think of some honest Othello pausing 
over this very sentence in a railroad carriage, and stealthily gazing 
at Desdemona opposite to him, innocently administering sandwiches 
to their little boy — I am trying to turn off the sentence with a 
joke, you see — I feel it is growing too dreadful, too serious. 

And to what, pray, do these serious, these disagreeable, these 
almost personal observations tend ? To this simply, that Charles 
Honeyman, the beloved and popular preacher, the elegant divine to 
whom Miss Blanche writes sonnets, and whom Miss Beatrice invites 
to tea ; who comes with smiles on his lip, gentle sympathy in his 
tones ; innocent gaiety in his accent ; who melts, rouses, terrifies 
in the pulpit ; who charms over the tea-urn and the bland bread- 
and-butter : Charles Honeyman has one or two skeleton closets in 
his lodgings, W T alpole Street, Mayfair ; and many a wakeful night, 
whilst Mrs. Ridley, his landlady, and her tired husband, the 
nobleman’s major-domo, whilst the lodger on the first floor, whilst 
the cook and housemaid, and weary little boot-boy are at rest 


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(mind you, they have all got their closets, which they open with 
their skeleton-keys) ; he wakes up, and looks at the ghastly occu- 
pant of that receptacle. One of the Reverend Charles Honeyman’s 
grizzly night-haunters is — but stop; let us give a little account 
of the lodgings, and some of the people frequenting the same. 

First floor, Mr. Bagshot, member for a Norfolk borough. Stout 
jolly gentleman ; dines at the Carlton Club ; greatly addicted to 
Greenwich and Richmond, in the season ; bets in a moderate way ; 
does not go into society, except now and again to the chiefs of his 
party, when they give great entertainments ; and once or twice to 
the houses of great country dons who dwell near him in the 
country. Is not of very good family ; was, in fact, an apothecary ; 
married a woman with money, much older than himself, who does 
not like London, and stops at home at Hummingham, not much to 
the displeasure of Bagshot; gives every now and then nice little 
quiet dinners, which Mrs. Ridley cooks admirably, to exceedingly 
stupid jolly old parliamentary fogeys, who absorb, with much 
silence and cheerfulness, a vast quantity of wine. They have just 
begun to drink ’24 claret now, that of T5 being scarce, and almost 
drunk up. Writes daily, and hears every morning from Mrs. Bag- 
shot ; does not read her letters always ; does not rise till long past 
eleven o’clock of a Sunday, and has John Bull and Bell's Life 
in bed ; frequents the “ Blue Posts ” sometimes ; rides a stout cob 
out of his county, and pays like the Bank of England. 

The house is a Norfolk house. Mrs. Ridley was housekeeper to 
the great Squire Bayham, who had the estate before the Conqueror, 
and who came to such a dreadful crash in the year 1825, the year 
of the Panic. Bayhams still belongs to the family, but in what a 
state, as those can say who recollect it in its palmy days ! Fifteen 
hundred acres of the best land in England were sold off : all the 
timber cut down as level as a billiard-board. Mr. Bayham now 
lives up in one corner of the house, which used to be filled with the 
finest company in Europe. Law bless you ! the Bayhams have 
seen almost all the nobility of England come in and go out ; and 
were gentlefolks when many a fine lord’s father of the present day 
was sweeping a counting-house. 

The house will hold genteelly no more than these two inmates ; 
but in the season it manages to accommodate Miss Cann, who, too, 
was from Bayhams, having been a governess there to the young 
lady who is dead, and who now makes such a livelihood as she can 
best raise, by going out as a daily teacher. Miss Cann dines with 
Mrs. Ridley in the adjoining little back parlour. Ridley but seldom 
can be spared to partake of the family dinner, his duties in the 
house and about the person of my Lord Todmorden keeping him 


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constantly near that nobleman. How little Miss Cann can go on 
and keep alive on the crumb she eats for her breakfast, and the 
scrap she picks at dinner, du astonish Mrs. Ridley, that it du ! 
She declares that the two canary-birds encaged in her window 
(whence is a cheerful prospect of the back of Lady Whittlesea’s 
chapel) eat more than Miss Cann. The two birds set up a tre- 
mendous singing and chorusing when Miss Cann, spying the occasion 
of the first-floor lodger’s absence, begins practising her music-pieces. 
Such trills, roulades,, and flourishes go on from the birds and the 
lodger ! it is a wonder how any fingers can move over the jingling 
ivory so quickly as Miss Cann’s. Excellent a woman as she is, 
admirably virtuous, frugal, brisk, honest, and cheerful, I would not 
like to live in lodgings where there was a lady so addicted to 
playing variations. No more does Honey man. On a Saturday, 
when he is composing his valuable sermons (the rogue, you may be 
sure, leaves his work to the last day, and there are, I am given to 
understand, among the clergy many better men than Honeyman 
who are as dilatory as he), he begs, he entreats with tears in his 
eyes, that Miss Cann’s music may cease. I would back little Cann 
to write a sermon against him, for all his reputation as a popular 
preacher. 

Old and weazened as that piano is, feeble and cracked as is her 
voice, it is wonderful what a pleasant concert she can give in that 
parlour of a Saturday evening to Mrs. Ridley, who generally dozes 
a good deal, and to a lad, who listens with all his soul, with tears 
sometimes in his great eyes, with crowding fancies filling his brain 
and throbbing at his heart, as the artist plies her humble instru- 
ment. She plays old music of Handel and Mozart, and the little 
chamber anon swells into a cathedral, and he who listens beholds 
altars lighted, priests ministering, fair children swinging censers, 
great oriel "windows gleaming in sunset, and seen through arched 
columns and avenues of twilight marble. The young fellow who 
hears her has been often and often to the opera and the theatres. 
As she plays “ Don Juan,” Zerlina comes tripping over the meadows, 
and Masetto after her, with a crowd of peasants and maidens : and they 
sing the sweetest of all music, and the heart beats with happiness, 
and kindness, and pleasure. Piano, pianissimo ! the city is hushed. 
The towers of the great cathedral rise in the distance, its spires 
lighted by the broad moon. The statues in the moonlit place cast 
long shadows athwart the pavement ; but the fountain in the midst 
is dressed out like Cinderella for the night, and sings and wears a 
crest of diamonds. That great sombre street all in shade, can it be 
the famous Toledo ? — or is it the Corso ? — or is it the great street in 
Madrid, the one which leads to the Escurial where the Rubens and 


122 


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Velasquez are? It is Fancy Street — Poetry Street — Imagination 
Street — the street where lovely ladies look from balconies, where 
cavaliers strike mandolins and draw swords and engage, where long 
processions pass, and venerable hermits, with long beards, bless the 
kneeling people ; where the rude soldiery, swaggering through the 
place with flags and halberts, and fife and dance, seize the slim 
waists of the daughters of the people, and bid the pifferari play 
to their dancing. Blow, bagpipes, a storm of harmony ! sound 
trumpets, trombones, ophicleides, fiddles, and bassoons ! Fire, guns ! 
Sound, tocsins ! Shout, people ! Louder, shriller, and sweeter 
than all, sing thou, ravishing heroine ! And see, on his cream- 
coloured charger Masaniello prances in, and Fra Diavolo leaps down 
the balcony, carabine in hand ; and Sir Huon of Bordeaux sails up 
to the quay with the Sultan’s daughter of Babylon. All these 
delights and sights, and joys and glories, these thrills of sympathy, 
movements of unknown longing, and visions of beauty, a young 
sickly lad of eighteen enjoys in a little dark room where there is a 
bed disguised in the shape of a wardrobe, and a little old woman 
is playing under a gas-lamp on the jingling keys of an old piano. 

For a long time Mr. Samuel Ridley, butler and confidential 
valet to the Right Honourable John James Baron Todmorden, was 
in a state of the greatest despair and gloom about his only son, 
the little John James, — a sickly and almost deformed child “ of 
whom there was no making nothink,” as Mr. Ridley said. His 
figure precluded him from following Ms father’s profession, and 
waiting upon the British nobility, who naturally require large and 
handsome men to skip up behind their rolling carriages, and hand 
their plates at dinner. When John James was six years old, his 
father remarked, with tears in his eyes, he wasn’t higher than a 
plate-basket. The boys jeered at him in the streets — some whopped 
him, spite of his diminutive size. At school he made but little 
progress. He was always sickly and dirty, and timid and crying, 
whimpering in the kitchen away from his mother; who, though 
she loved him, took Mr. Ridley’s view of his character, and thought 
him little better than an idiot, until such time as little Miss Gann 
took him in hand, when at length there was some hope of him. 

“ Half-witted, you great stupid big man,” says Miss Cann, who 
had a fine spirit of her own. “ That boy half-witted ! He has 
got more wit in his little finger than you have in all your great 
person ! You are a very good man, Ridley, very good-natured, I’m 
sure, and bear with the teasing of a waspish old woman : but you 
are not the wisest of mankind. Tut, tut, don’t tell me. You 
know you spell out the words when you read the newspaper still, 
and what would your bills look like, if I did not write them in my 


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123 


nice little hand ? I tell you that boy is & genius. I tell you that 
one day the world will hear of him. His heart is made of pure 
gold. You think that all the wit belongs to the big people. Look 
at me, you great tall man ! Am I not a hundred times cleverer 
than you are 1 ? Yes, and John James is worth a thousand such 
insignificant little chits as I am ; and he is as tall as me too, sir. 
Do you hear that? One day I am determined he shall dine at 
Lord Todmorden’s table, and he shall get the prize at the Royal 
Academy, and be famous, sir — famous ! ” 

“Well, Miss 0., I wish he may get it; that’s all I say,” 
answers Mr. Ridley. “The poor fellow does no harm, that I 
acknowledge ; but I never see the good he was up to yet. I wish 
he’d begin it ; I du wish he would now.” And the honest gentle- 
man relapses into the study of his paper. 

All those beautiful sounds and thoughts which Miss Cann 
conveys to him out of her charmed piano, the young artist straight- 
way translates into forms ; and knights in armour, with plume, 
and shield, and battle-axe ; and splendid young noblemen with 
flowing ringlets, and bounteous plumes of feathers, and rapiers, and 
russet boots ; and fierce banditti with crimson tights, doublets pro- 
fusely illustrated with large brass buttons, and the dumpy basket- 
hilted claymores known to be the favourite weapon with which 
these whiskered ruffians do battle ; wasp-waisted peasant girls, and 
young countesses with oh, such large eyes and cherry lips ! — all 
these splendid forms of war and beauty crowd to the young 
draughtsman’s pencil, and cover letter-backs, copy-books, without 
end. If his hand strikes off some face peculiarly lovely, and to 
his taste, some fair vision that has shone on his imagination, some 
houri of a dancer, some bright young lady of fashion in an opera- 
box, whom he has seen, or fancied he has seen (for the youth is 
short-sighted, though he hardly as yet knows his misfortune) — if he 
has made some effort extraordinarily successful, our young Pygmalion 
hides away the masterpiece, and he paints the beauty with all 
his skill ; the lips a bright carmine, the eyes a deep, deep cobalt, 
the cheeks a dazzling vermilion, the ringlets of a golden hue ; and 
he worships this sweet creature of his in secret, fancies a history 
for her : a castle to storm, a tyrant usurper who keeps her im- 
prisoned, and a prince in black ringlets and a spangled cloak, who 
scales the tower, who slays the tyrant, and then kneels gracefully 
at the princess’s feet, and says, “ Lady, wilt thou be mine ? ” 

There is a kind lady in the neighbourhood, who takes in 
dressmaking for the neighbouring maid-servants, and has a small 
establishment of lollipops, theatrical characters, and gingerbeer for 
the boys in Little Craggs Buildings, hard by the “ Running Foot- 


124 


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man” public-house, where father and other gentlemen’s gentlemen 
have their club : this good soul also sells Sunday newspapers to the 
footmen of the neighbouring gentry ; and besides, has a stock of 
novels for the ladies of the upper servants’ table. Next to Miss 
Cann, Miss Flinders is John James’s greatest friend and benefactor. 
She has remarked him when he was quite a little man, and used 
to bring his father’s beer of a Sunday. Out of her novels he has 
taught himself to read, dull boy at the day-school though he was, 
and always the last in his class there. Hours, happy hours, has 
he spent cow T ering behind her counter, or hugging her books under 
his pinafore when he had leave to carry them home. The whole 
library has passed through his hands, his long, lean, tremulous 
hands, and under his eager eyes. He has made illustrations to 
every one of those books, and been frightened at his own pictures 
of Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk, Abellino, the terrific Bravo of 
Venice, and Rinaldo Rinaldini, Captain of Robbers. How he has 
blistered Thaddeus of Warsaw with his tears, and drawn him in his 
Polish cap, and tights, and Hessians ! William Wallace, the Hero 
of Scotland, how nobly he has depicted him ! With what whiskers 
and bushy ostrich plumes ! — in a tight kilt, and with what magni- 
ficent calves to his legs, laying about him with his battle-axe, and 
bestriding the bodies of King Edward’s prostrate cavaliers ! At 
this time Mr. Honeyman comes to lodge in Walpole Street, and 
brings a set of Scott’s novels, for which he subscribed when at 
Oxford ; and young John James, who at first waits upon him and 
does little odd jobs for the reverend gentleman, lights upon the 
volumes, and reads them with such a delight and passion of pleasure 
as all the delights of future days will scarce equal. A fool, is he 'l 
— an idle feller, out of whom no good will ever come, as his father 
says. There was a time when, in despair of any better chance for 
him, his parents thought of apprenticing him to a tailor, and John 
James was waked up from a dream of Rebecca and informed of the 
cruelty meditated against him. I forbear to describe the tears and 
terror, and frantic desperation in which the poor boy was plunged. 
Little Miss Cann rescued him from that awful board, and Honey- 
man likewise interceded for him, and Mr. Bagshot promised that, 
as soon as his party came in, he would ask the Minister for a tide- 
waitership for him ; for everybody liked the solemn, soft-hearted, 
willing little lad, and no one knew him less than his pompous and 
stupid and respectable father. 

Miss Cann painted flowers and card-screens elegantly, and 
“finished” pencil-drawings most elaborately for her pupils. She 
could copy prints, so that at a little distance you would scarcely 
know that the copy in stumped chalk was not a bad mezzotinto 


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engraving. She even had a little old paint-box, and showed you 
one or two ivory miniatures out of the drawers. She gave John 
James wbat little knowledge of drawing she had, and handed him 
over her invaluable recipes for mixing water-colours — “ for trees in 
foregrounds, burnt sienna and indigo ” — “ for very dark foliage, ivory 
black and gamboge ” — “ for flesh-colour,” &c., &c. John James went 
through her poor little course, but not so brilliantly as she expected. 
She was forced to own that several of her pupils’ “pieces” were 
executed much more dexterously than Johnny Ridley’s. Honeyman 
looked at the boy’s drawings from time to time, and said, “ Hm, 
ha! — very clever — a great deal of fancy, really.” But Honeyman 
knew no more of the subject than a deaf and dumb man knows of 
music. He could talk the Art-cant very glibly, and had a set of 
Morghens and Madonnas as became a clergyman and a man of 
taste ; but he saw not with eyes such as those wherewith Heaven 
had endowed the humble little butler’s boy, to whom splendours of 
Nature were revealed to vulgar sights invisible, and beauties mani- 
fest in forms, colours, shadows of common objects, where most of 
the world saw only what was dull, and gross, and familiar. One 
reads in the magic story-books, of a charm or a flower which the 
wizard gives, and which enables the bearer to see the fairies. 0 
enchanting boon of Nature, which reveals to the possessor the hidden 
spirits of beauty round about him ! spirits which the strongest 
and most gifted masters compel into painting or song. To others 
it is granted but to have fleeting glimpses of that fair Art-world ; 
and tempted by ambition, or barred by faint-heartedness, or driven 
by necessity, to turn away thence to the vulgar life-track, and the 
light of common day. 

The reader who has passed through Walpole Street scores of 
times knows the discomfortable architecture of all save the great 
houses built in Queen Anne’s and George the First’s time; and 
while some of the neighbouring streets, to wit, Great Craggs Street, 
Bolingbroke Street, and others, contain mansions fairly coped with 
stone, with little obelisks before the doors, and great extinguishers 
wherein the torches of the nobility’s running footmen were put out 
a hundred and thirty or forty years ago ; — houses which still remain 
abodes of the quality, and where you shall see a hundred carriages 
gather of a public night ; — Walpole Street has quite faded away 
into lodgings, private hotels, doctors’ houses, and the like; nor 
is No. 23 (Ridley’s) by any means the best house in the street. 
The parlour, furnished and tenanted by Miss Cann as has 

been described ; the first floor, Bagshot, Esquire, M.P. ; the 

second floor, Honeyman ; what remains but the garrets, and the 
ample staircase and the kitchens? and the family being all put 


126 THE NEWCOMES 

to bed, how can you imagine there is room for any more in- 
habitants ? 

And yet there is one lodger more, and one who, like almost all 
the other personages mentioned up to the present time (and some 
of whom you have no idea yet), will play a definite part in the 
ensuing history. At night, when Honeyman comes in, he finds 
on the hall table three wax bedroom candles — his own, Bagshot’s, 
and another. As for Miss Cann, she is locked into the parlour 
in bed long ago, her stout little walking shoes being on the mat 
at the door. At twelve o’clock at noon, sometimes at one, nay at 
two and three — long after Bagshot is gone to his committees, and 
little Cann to her pupils — a voice issues from the very topmost 
floor, from a room where there is no bell ; a voice of thunder calling 
out “Slavey! Julia! Julia, my love! Mrs. Ridley!” And this 
summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that 
a pair of trousers enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and 
known by the name of the celebrated Prussian General who came 
up to help the other christener of boots at Waterloo, will be flung 
down from the topmost storey, even to the marble floor of the 
resounding hall. Then the boy Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, 
may say, “ There he goes again ; ” or Mrs. Ridley’s own back-parlour 
bell rings vehemently, and Julia the cook will exclaim, “Lor’, it’s 
Mr. Frederick.” 

If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself 
appears in great wrath dancing on the upper storey ; dancing down 
to the lower floor ; and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing 
robe de chambre. In this costume and condition he will dance into 
Honeyman’s apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting 
with a headache, or over a novel or a newspaper ; dance up to the 
fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there ; dance 
up to the cupboard where his reverence keep his sherry, and help 
himself to a glass. 

“ Salve , spes Jidei , lumen ecclesioe ,” he will say ; “ here’s towards 
you, my buck. I knows the tap. Sherrick’s Marsala bottled 
three months after date, at two hundred and forty-six shillings 
the dozen.” 

“Indeed, indeed it’s not” (and now we are coming to an idea 
of the skeleton in poor Honeyman’s closet — not that this huge 
handsome jolly Fred Bay ham is the skeleton, far from it. Mr. 
Frederick weighs fourteen stone). “ Indeed, indeed it isn’t, Fred, 
I’m sure,” sighs the other. “ You exaggerate, indeed you do. The 
wine is not dear, not by any means so expensive as you say.” 

“ How much a glass, think you ? ” says Fred, filling another 
bumper. “A half-crown think ye? — a half-crown, Honeyman? 


THE NEWCOMES 


127 


/ 

By cock and pye, it is not worth a bender.” He says this in the 
manner of the most celebrated tragedian of the day. He can 
imitate any actor, tragic or comic ; any known Parliamentary orator 
or clergyman, any saw, cock, cloop of a cork wrenched from a bottle 
and guggling of wine into the decanter afterwards, bee-buzzing, little 
boy up a chimney, &c. He imitates people being ill on board a 
steam-packet so well that he makes you die of laughing : his uncle 
the Bishop could not resist this comic exhibition, and gave Fred a 
cheque for a comfortable sum of money ; and Fred, getting cash 
for the cheque at the “Cave of Harmony,” imitated his uncle 
the Bishop and his Chaplain, winding up with his Lordship and 
Chaplain being unwell at sea — the Chaplain and Bishop quite 
natural and distinct. 

“How much does a glass of this sack cost thee, Charley*?” 
resumes Fred, after this parenthesis. “ You say it is not dear. 
Charles Honeyman, you had, even from your youth up, a villainous 
habit. And I perfectly well remember, sir, in boyhood’s breezy 
hour, w T hen I was the delight of his school, that you used to tell 
lies to your venerable father. You did, Charles. Excuse the 
frankness of an early friend, it’s my belief you’d rather lie than 
not. H’m ” — he looks at the cards in the chimney-glass : — “ In- 
vitations to dinner, proffers of muffins. Do lend me your 
sermon. Oh, you old impostor ! you hoary old Ananias ! I say, 
Charley, why haven’t you picked out some nice girl for yours truly ? 
One with lands and beeves, with rents and consols, mark you ! I 
have no money, ’tis true, but then I don’t owe as much as you. 
I am a handsomer man than you are. Look at this chest (he 
slaps it), these limbs ; they are manly, sir, manly.” 

“ For Heaven’s sake, Bayliam,” cries Mr. Honeyman, white 
with terror; “if anybody were to come ” 

“What did I say anon, sir? that I was manly, ay, manly. 
Let any ruffian, save a bailiff, come and meet the doughty arm 
of Frederick Bayham.” 

“ 0 Lord, Lord, here’s somebody coming into the room ! ” cries 
Charles, sinking back on the sofa as the door opens. 

“ Ha ! dost thou come with murderous intent ? ” and he now 
advances in an approved offensive attitude. “ Caitiff, come on, 
come on ! ” and he walks off with a tragic laugh, crying, “ Ha, 
ha, ha ! ’tis but the slavey.” 

The slavey has Mr. Frederick’s hot water, and a bottle of soda- 
water on the same tray. He has been instructed to bring soda 
whenever he hears the word slavey pronounced from above. The 
bottle explodes, and Frederick drinks, and hisses after his drink 
as though he had been all hot within. 


128 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ What’s o’clock now, slavey — half-past three 1 Let me see, 
I breakfasted exactly ten hours ago, in the rosy morning, off a 
modest cup of coffee in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny ; 
bread, a simple halfpenny. What has Mrs. Ridley for dinner 1 ” 

“ Please, sir, roast pork.” 

“Get me some. Bring it into my room, unless, Honeyman, 
you insist upon my having it here, kind fellow ! ” 

At the moment a smart knock comes to the door, and Fred 
says, “ Well, Charles, it may be a friend or a lady come to confess, 
and I’m off ; I knew you’d be sorry I was going. Tom, bring up 
my things, brush ’em gently, you scoundrel, and don’t take the nap 
off. Bring up the roast pork, and plenty of apple sauce, tell Mrs. 
Ridley, with my love ; and one of Mr. Honeyman’s shirts, and one 
of his razors. Adieu, Charles ! Amend ! Remember me.” And 
he vanishes into the upper chambers. 


CHAPTER XII 

IN WHICH EVERYBODY IS ASKED TO DINNER 


J OHN JAMES had opened the door, hastening to welcome a 
friend and patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the 
youth’s eyes ; no other than Clive Newcome — in young Ridley’s 
opinion, the most splendid, fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and 
gifted youth this island contained. What generous boy in his 
time has not worshipped somebody 1 ? Before the female enslaver 
makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of 
cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation, whom 
he cherishes in his heart of hearts ; whose sister he proposes to 
marry in after life ; whose purse he shares ; for whom he will 
take a thrashing if need be : who is his hero. Clive was John 
James’s youthful divinity: when he wanted to draw Thaddeus of 
Warsaw, a Prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, 
it was Clive he took for a model. His heart leapt when he saw 
the young fellow. He would walk cheerfully to Grey Friars, with 
a letter or message for Clive, on the chance of seeing him, and 
getting a kind word from him, or a shake of the hand. An ex- 
butler of Lord Todmorden was a pensioner in the Grey Friars 
Hospital (it has been said that at that ancient establishment is a 
college for old men as well as for boys), and this old man would 
come sometimes to his successor’s Sunday dinner, and grumble 
from the hour of that meal until nine o’clock, when he was forced 
to depart, so as to be within Grey Friars gates before ten ; grumble 
about his dinner — grumble about his beer — grumble about the number 
of chapels he had to -attend, about the gown he wore, about the 
Master’s treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, 
as old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a 
liking John James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, 
and snuffy old man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting 
him at his lodging in the old hospital. He actually took that 
journey that he might have a chance of seeing Clive. He sent 
Clive notes and packets of drawings ; thanked him for books lent, 
asked advice about future reading — anything, so that he might 
have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon. 

8 


i 


130 


THE NEWCOMES 


I am afraid Clive Newcome employed him to smuggle rum- 
shrub and cigars into the premises; giving him appointments in 
the school precincts, where young Clive would come and stealthily 
receive the forbidden goods. The poor lad was known by the 
boys, and called Newcome’s Punch. He was all but hunchbacked ; 
long and lean in the arm ; sallow, with a great forehead, and waving 
black hair, and large melancholy eyes. 

“ What, is it you, J. J. ? ” cries Clive gaily, when his humble 
friend appears at the door. “Father, this is my friend Ridley. 
This is the fellow what can draw.” 

“ I know whom I will back against any young man of his size 
at that,” says the Colonel, looking at Clive fondly. He considered 
there was not such a genius in the world ; and had already thought 
of having some of Clive’s drawings published by M‘Lean of the 
Haymarket. 

“ This is my father just come from India — and Mr. Pendennis, 
an old Grey Friars man. Is my uncle at home?” Both these 
gentlemen bestow rather patronising nods of the head on the 
lad introduced to them as J. J. His exterior is but mean-looking. 
Colonel Newcome, one of the humblest-minded men alive, has 
yet his old-fashioned military notions ; and speaks to a butler’s 
son as to a private soldier, kindly, but not familiarly. 

“ Mr. Honeyman is at home, gentlemen,” the young lad says 
humbly. “Shall I show you up to his room?” And we walk 
up the stairs after our guide. We find Mr. Honeyman deep in 
study on the sofa, with “ Pearson on the Creed ” before him. 
The novel has been whipped under the pillow. Clive found it 
there some short time afterwards, during his uncle’s temporary 
absence in his dressing-room. He has agreed to suspend his 
theological studies, and go out with his brother-in-law to dine. 

As Clive and his friends were at Honey man’s door, and just 
as we were entering to see the divine seated in state before his 
folio, Clive whispers, “ J. J., come along, old fellow, and show us 
some drawings. What are you doing ? ” 

“I was doing some Arabian Nights,” 'says J. J., “up in my 
room ; and, hearing a knock which I thought was yours, I came 
down.” 

“ Show us the pictures. Let’s go up into your room,” cries 
Clive. 

“What — will you?” says the other. “It is but a very small 
place.” 

“ Never mind, come along,” says Clive ; and the two lads dis- 
appear together, leaving the three grown gentlemen to discourse 
together, or rather two of us to listen to Honeyman, who expatiates 


THE NEWCOMES 


131 


upon the beauty of the weather, the difficulties of the clerical call- 
ing, the honour Colonel Newcome does him by a visit, &c., with 
his usual eloquence. 

After a while Clive comes down without J. J., from the upper 
regions. He is greatly excited. “ 0 sir,” he says to his father, 
“ you talk about my drawings — you should see J. J.’s ! By Jove, 
that fellow is a genius. They are beautiful, sir. You seem actually 
to read the ‘ Arabian Nights,’ you know, only in pictures. There 
is Scheherazade telling the stories, and — what do you call her? — 
Dinarzade and the Sultan sitting in bed and listening. Such a 
grim old cove ! You see he has cut off ever so many of his wives’ 
heads. I can’t think where that chap gets his ideas from. I can 
beat him in drawing horses, I know, and dogs; but I can only 
draw what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don’t, don’t 
you know? 0 father, I’m determined I’d rather be a painter 
than anything.” And he falls to drawing horses and dogs at his 
uncle’s table, round which the elders are seated. 

“ I’ve settled it upstairs with J. J.,” says Clive, working away 
with his pen. “We shall take a studio together; perhaps we will 
go abroad together. Won’t that be fun, father?” 

“ My dear Clive,” remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, 
“ there are degrees in society which we must respect. You surely 
cannot think of being a professional artist. Such a profession is 
very well for your young protdgd : but for you ” 

“What for me?” cries Clive. “We are no such great folks 
that I know of ; and if we were, I say a painter is as good as a 
lawyer, or a doctor, or even a soldier. In Doctor Johnson’s Life 
— which my father is always reading — I like to read about Sir 
Joshua Reynolds best : I think he is the best gentleman of all 
in the book. My ! wouldn’t I like to paint a picture like Lord 
Heathfield in the National Gallery ! Wouldn’t I just ! I think 
I would sooner have done that, than have fought at Gibraltar. And 
those Three Graces — oh, aren’t they graceful ! And that Cardinal 
Beaufort at Dulwich ! — it frightens me so, I daren’t look at it. 
Wasn’t Reynolds a clipper ! that’s all ! and wasn’t Rubens a brick ? 
He was an ambassador and Knight of the Bath ; so was Yandyck. 
And Titian, and Raphael, and Velasquez ? — I’ll just trouble you to 
show me better gentlemen than them, Uncle Charles.” 

“ Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not 
honourable,” says Uncle Charles; “but as the world goes there 
are other professions in greater repute; and I should have thought 
Colonel Newcome’s son ” 

“ He shall follow his own bent,” said the Colonel ; “as long 
as his calling is honest, it becomes a gentleman ; and if he were 


132 THE NEWCOMES 

to take a fancy to play on the fiddle — actually on the fiddle — I 
shouldn’t object.” 

“ Such a rum chap there was upstairs ! ” Clive resumes, looking 
up from his scribbling. “ He was walking up and down on the 
landing in a dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, 
holding a plate in one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching 



with the other. Like this ” (and Clive draws a figure). “ What 
do you think, sir ? He was in the * Cave of Harmony,’ he says, 
that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. He knew me 
at once ; and he says, ‘ Sir, your father acted like a gentleman, 
a Christian, and a man of honour. Maxima debetur puero 
reverentia. Give him my compliments. I don’t know his highly 
respectable name.’ His highly respectable name,” says Clive, 


THE NEWCOMES 


133 


cracking with laughter — “ those were his very words. ‘ And 
inform him that I am an orphan myself — in needy circumstances 1 
— he said he was in needy circumstances ; ‘ and I heartily wish 
he’d adopt me.’ ” 

The lad puffed out his face, made his voice as loud and as deep 
as he could ; and from his imitation and the picture he had drawn, 
I knew at once that Fred Bayham was the man he mimicked. 

“And does the Bed Rover live here,” cried Mr. Pendennis, 
“and have we earthed him at last?” 

“ He sometimes comes here,” Mr. Honeyman said, with a care- 
less manner. “My landlord and landlady were butler and house- 
keeper to his father, Bayham of Bayham, one of the oldest families 
in Europe. And Mr. Frederick Bayham, the exceedingly eccentric 
person of whom you speak, was a private pupil of my own dear 
father in our happy days at Borehambury.” 

He had scarcely spoken when a knock was .heard at the door, 
and before the occupant of the lodgings could say “ Come in ! ” Mr. 
Frederick Bayham made his appearance, arrayed in that peculiar 
costume which he affected. In those days we wore very tall stocks, 
only a very few poetic and eccentric persons venturing on the Byron 
collar; but Fred Bayham confined his neck by a simple riband,, 
which allowed his great red whiskers to curl freely round his 
capacious jowl. He wore a black frock and a large broad-brimmed 
hat, and looked somewhat like a Dissenting preacher. At other 
periods you would see him in a green coat and a blue neckcloth, as 
if the turf or the driving of coaches was his occupation. 

“ I have heard from the young man of the house who you were, 
Colonel Newcome,” he said with the greatest gravity, “ and happened 
to be present, sir, the other night ; for I was aweary, having been 
toiling all the day in literary labour, and needed some refreshment. 
I happened to be present, sir, at a scene which did you the greatest 
honour, and of which I spoke, not knowing you, with something 
like levity to your son. He is an ingenui vultus puer ingenuiq^ie 
pudoris — Pendennis, how are you? — and I thought, sir, I would 
come down and tender an apology if I had said any words that 
might savour of offence to a gentleman who was in the right, as I 
told the room when you quitted it, as Mr. Pendennis, I am sure, 
will remember.” 

Mr. Pendennis looked surprise, and perhaps negation. 

“ You forget, Pendennis ? Those who quit that room, sir, often 
forget on the morrow what occurred during the revelry of the night. 
You did right in refusing to return to that scene. We public men 
are obliged often to seek our refreshment at hours when luckier 
individuals are lapt in slumber.” 


34 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ And what may be your occupation, Mr. Bayham 1 ” asks the 
Colonel, rather gloomily, for he had an idea that Bayham was 
adopting a strain of persiflage which the Indian gentleman by no 
means relished. Never saying aught but a kind word to any one, 
he was on fire at the notion that any should take a liberty with 
him. 

“A barrister, sir, but without business — a literary man, who 
can but seldom find an opportunity to sell the works of his brains 
— a gentleman, sir, who has met with neglect, perhaps merited, 
perhaps undeserved, from his family. I get my bread as best I 
may. On that evening I had been lecturing on the genius of some 
of our comic writers, at the Parthenopseon, Hackney. My audience 
was scanty, perhaps equal to my deserts. I came home on foot to 
an egg and a glass of beer after midnight, and witnessed the scene 
which did you so much honour. What is this 'l I fancy a ludicrous 
picture of myself” — he had taken up the sketch which Clive had 
been drawing — “ I like fun, even at my own expense, and can afford 
to laugh at a joke which is meant in good humour.” 

This speech quite reconciled the honest Colonel. “ I am sure 
the author of that, Mr. Bayham, means you or any man no harm. 
Why ! the rascal, sir, has drawn me, his own father ; and I have 
sent the drawing to Major Hobbs, who is in command of my regi- 
ment. Chiunery himself, sir, couldn’t hit off a likeness better; 
he has drawn me on horseback, and he has drawn me on foot, and 
he has drawn my friend, Mr. Binnie, who lives with me. We have 
scores of his drawings at my lodgings ; and if you will favour us by 
dining with us to-day, and these gentlemen, you shall see that you 
are not the only person caricatured by Clive here.” 

“ I just took some little dinner upstairs, sir. I am a moderate 
man, and can live, if need be, like a Spartan ; but to join such good 
company I will gladly use the knife and fork again. You will excuse 
the traveller’s dress'? I keep a room here, which I use only occasion- 
ally, and am at present lodging — in the country.” 

When Honeyman was ready, the Colonel, who had the greatest 
respect for the Church, would not hear of going out of the room 
before the clergyman, and took his arm to walk. Bayham then 
fell to Mr. Pendennis’s lot, and they went together. Through Hill 
Street and Berkeley Square their course was straight enough ; but 
at Hay Hill, Mr. Bayham made an abrupt tack larboard, engaging 
in a labyrinth of stables, and walking a long way round from 
Clifford Street, whither we were bound. He hinted at a cab, but 
Pendennis refused to ride, being, in truth, anxious to see which way 
his eccentric companion would steer. “ There are reasons,” growled 
Bayham, “ which need not be explained to one of your experience, 


THE NEWCOMES 


135 


why Bond Street must be avoided by some men peculiarly situated. 
The smell of Truefitt’s pomatum makes me ill. Tell me, Pen- 
dennis, is this Indian warrior a rajah of large wealth 'l Could he, 
do you think, recommend me to a situation in the East India 
Company ? I would gladly take any honest post in which fidelity 
might be useful, genius- might be appreciated, and courage rewarded. 
Here we are. The hotel seems comfortable. I never was in it 
before.” 

When we entered the Colonel’s sitting-room at Nerot’s, we 
found the waiter engaged in extending the table. “We are a 
larger party than I expected,” our host said. “ I met my brother 

Brian on horseback leaving cards at that great house in 

Street.” 

“ The Russian Embassy,” says Mr. Honeyman, who knew the 
town quite well. 

“ And he said he was disengaged and would dine with us,” con- 
tinues the Colonel. 

“ Am I to understand, Colonel Newcome,” says Mr. Frederick 
Bayham, “that you are related to the eminent banker, Sir Brian 
Newcome, who gives such uncommonly swell parties in Park 
Lane 1 ” 

“ What is a swell party 1 ” asks the Colonel, laughing. “ I 
dined with my brother last Wednesday ; and it was a very grand 
dinner certainly. The Governor-General himself could not give a 
more splendid entertainment. But, do you know, I scarcely had 
enough to eat 1 I don’t eat side-dishes ; and as for the roast beef 
of Old England, why, the meat was put on the table, and whisked 
away like Sancho’s inauguration feast at Barataria. We did not 
dine till nine o’clock. I like a few glasses of claret and a cosy talk 
after dinner; but — well, well” — (no doubt the worthy gentleman 
was accusing himself of telling tales out of school and had come to 
a timely repentance). “ Our dinner, I hope, will be different. Jack 
Binnie will take care of that. That fellow is full of anecdote and 
fun. You will meet one or two more of our service ; Sir Thomas 
de koots, who is not a bad chap over a glass of wine ; Mr. Pen- 
dennis’s chum, Mr. Warrington, and my nephew, Barnes Newcome 
— a dry fellow at first, but I dare say he has good about him when 
you know him ; almost every man has,” said the good-natured philo- 
sopher. “Clive, you "rogue, mind and be moderate with the cham- 
pagne, sir ! ” 

“ Champagne’s for women,” says Clive. “ I stick to claret.” 

“I say, Pendennis,” here Bayham remarked, “it is my deliberate 
opinion that F. B. has got into a good thing.” 

Mr. Pendennis, seeing there was a great party, was for going 


1 36 


THE NEWCOMES 


home to his chambers to dress. “ Hm ! ” says Mr. Bayham, 
“don’t see the necessity. What right-minded man looks at the 
exterior of his neighbour 1 He looks here, sir, and examines there,” 
an.d Bayham tapped his forehead, which was expansive, and then 
his heart, which he considered to be in the right place. 

“What is this I hear about dressing?” asks our host. “ Dine 
in your frock, my good friend, and welcome, if your dress-coat is in 
the country.” 

“It is at present at an uncle’s,” Mr. Bayham said, with great 
gravity, “and I take your hospitality as you offer it, Colonel 
Newcome, cordially and frankly.” 

Honest Mr. Binnie made his appearance a short time before the 
appointed hour for receiving the guests, arrayed in a tight little pair 
of trousers, and white silk stockings and pumps, his bald head 
shining like a billiard-ball, his jolly gills rosy with good-humour. 
He was bent on pleasure. “ Hey, lads ! ” says he ; “ but we’ll 
make a night of it. We haven’t had a night since the farewell dinner 
off Plymouth.” 

“And a jolly night it was, James,” ejaculates the Colonel. 

“ Egad, what a song that Tom Norris sings ! ” 

“And your ‘Jock o’ Hazeldean’ is as good as a play, Jack.” 

“ And I think you beat iny one I iver hard in ‘ Tom Bowling ’ 
yourself, Tom ! ” cries the Colonel’s delighted chum. Mr. Pendennis 
opened the eyes of astonishment at the idea of the possibility of 
renewing these festivities, but he kept the lips of prudence closed. 
And now the carriages began to drive up, and the guests of Colonel 
Newcome to arrive. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN WHICH THOMAS NEWCOME SINGS HIS LAST SONG 

T HE earliest comers were the first mate and the medical officer 
of the ship in which the two gentlemen had come to 
England. The mate was a Scotchman ; the Doctor was a 
Scotchman ; of the gentlemen from the Oriental Club, three were 
Scotchmen. 

The Southerons, with one exception, were the last to arrive, 
and for a while we stood looking out of the windows awaiting their 
coming. The first mate pulled out a penknife, and arranged his 
nails. The Doctor and Mr. Binnie talked of the progress of 
medicine. Binnie had walked the hospitals of Edinburgh before 
getting his civil appointment to India. The three gentlemen from 
Hanover Square and the Colonel had plenty to say about Tom 
Smith of the Cavalry, and Harry Hall of the Engineers : how 
Topham was going to marry poor little Bob Wallis’s widow; how 
many lakhs Barber had brought home, and the like. The tall 
grey-headed Englishman, who had been in the East too, in the 
King’s service, joined for a while in this conversation, but presently 
left it, and came and talked with Clive “ I knew your father in 
India,” said the gentleman to the lad ; “ there is not a more gallant 
or respected officer in that service. I have a boy too, a stepson, 
who has just gone into the army ; he is older than you ; he was 
born at the end of the Waterloo year, and so was a great 
friend of his and mine, who was at your school, Sir Rawdon 
Crawley.” 

“ He was in Gown Boys, I know,” says the boy ; “ succeeded 
his Uncle Pitt, fourth Baronet. I don’t know how his mother — 
her who wrote the hymns, you know, and goes to Mr. Honeyman’s 
chapel — comes to be Rebecca, Lady Crawley. His father, Colonel 
Rawdon Crawley, died at Coventry Island, in August 182 — , and 
his uncle, Sir Pitt, not till September here. I remember, we used 
to talk about it at Grey Friars, when I was quite a little chap ; 
and there were bets whether Crawley, I mean the young one, was 
a Baronet or not.” 

“ When I sailed to Rigy, Cornel,” the first mate was speaking — 


138 


THE NEWCOMES 


nor can any spelling nor combination of letters of which I am 
master reproduce this gentleman’s accent when he was talking his 
best — “ I racklackt they used always to sairve us a drem before 
denner. And as your frinds are kipping the denner, and as I’ve 
no watch to-night, I’ll jist do as we used to do at Rigy. James, 
my fine fellow, jist look alive and breng me a small glass of brandy, 
will ye? Did ye iver try a brandy cocktail, Cornel? Whin I sailed 
on the New York line, we used jest to make bits before denner : 
and — thank ye, James ” — and he tossed off a glass of brandy. 

Here a waiter announces, in a loud voice, “ Sir Thomas de 
Boots,” and the General enters, scowling round the room according 
to his fashion, very red in the face, very tight in the girth, splendidly 
attired with a choking white neckcloth, a voluminous waistcoat, 
and his orders on. 

“ Stars and garters, by jingo ! ” cries Mr. Frederick Bay ham ; 
“ I say, Pendennis, have you any idea, is the Duke coming ? 
I wouldn’t have come in these Bluchers if I had known it. 
Confound it, no — Hoby himself, my own bootmaker, wouldn’t 
have allowed poor F. B. to appear in Bluchers, if he had known 
that I was going to meet the Duke. My linen’s all right, any- 
how ; ” and F. B. breathed a thankful prayer for that. Indeed, 
who but the very curious could tell that not F. B.’s, but C. H.’s — 
Charles Honeyman’s — was the mark upon that decorous linen ? 

Colonel Newcome introduced Sir Thomas to every one in the 
room, as he had introduced us all to each other previously ; and as 
Sir Thomas looked at one after another, his face was kind enough 
to assume an expression which seemed to ask, “ And who the devil 
are you, sir ? ” as clearly as though the General himself had given 
utterance to the words. With the gentleman in the window talking 
to Clive he seemed to have some acquaintance, and said, not 
unkindly, “ How d’you do, Dobbin ? ” 

The carriage of Sir Brian Newcome now drove up, from which 
the Baronet descended in state, leaning upon the arm of the Apollo 
in plush and powder, who closed the shutters of the great coach, 
and mounted by the side of the coachman, laced and periwigged. 
The Bench of Bishops has given up its wigs ; cannot the box, too, 
be made to resign that insane decoration ? Is it necessary for our 
comfort, that the men who do , our work in stable or household 
should be dressed like Merry-Andrews? Enter Sir Brian Newcome, 
smiling blandly; he greets his brother affectionately, Sir Thomas 
gaily; he nods and smiles to Clive, and graciously permits Mr. 
Pendennis to take hold of two fingers of his extended right hand. 
That gentleman is charmed, of Course, with the condescension. 
What man could be otherwise than happy to be allowed a momentary 


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139 

embrace of two such precious fingers ? When a gentleman so 
favours me, I always ask, mentally, why he has taken the trouble 
at all, and regret that I have not had the presence of mind to poke 
one finger against his two. If I were worth ten thousand a year, I 
cannot help inwardly reflecting, and kept a large account in Thread 
needle Street, I cannot help thinking he would have favoured me 
with the whole palm. 

The arrival of these two grandees has somehow cast a solemnity 
over the company. The weather is talked about : brilliant in itself, 
it does not occasion very brilliant remarks among Colonel Newcome’s 
guests. Sir Brian really thinks it must be as hot as it is in India. 
Sir Thomas de Boots, swelling in his white waistcoat, in the arm- 
holes of which his thumbs are engaged, smiles scornfully, and wishes 
Sir Brian had ever felt a good sweltering day in the hot winds in 
India. Sir Brian withdraws the untenable proposition that London 
is as hot as Calcutta. Mr. Binnie looks at his watch, and at the 
Colonel. “We have only your nephew, Tom, to wait for,” he says ; 
“ I think we may make so bold as to order the dinner,” — a proposal 
heartily seconded by Mr. Frederick Bayham. 

The dinner appears steaming, borne by steaming waiters. The 
grandees take their places, one on each side of the Colonel. He 
begs Mr. Honeyman to say grace, and stands reverentially during 
that brief ceremony, while De Boots looks queerly at him from over 
his napkin. All the young men take their places at the farther end 
of the table, round about Mr. Binnie ; and, at the end of the second 
course, Mr. Barnes Newcome makes his appearance. 

Mr. Barnes does not show the slightest degree of disturbance, 
although he disturbs all the company. Soup and fish are brought 
for him, and meat, which he leisurely eats, while twelve other 
gentlemen are kept waiting. We mark Mr. Binnie’s twinkling eyes 
as they watch the young man. “ Eh,” he seems to say, “ but that’s 
just about as free-and-easy a young chap as ever I set eyes on.” 
And so Mr. Barnes was a cool young chap. That dish is so good, 
he must really have some more. He discusses the second supply 
leisurely; and turning round, simpering, to his neighbour, says, “I 
really hope I’m not keeping everybody waiting.” 

“ Hem ! ” grunts the neighbour, Mr. Bayham ; “ it doesn’t 
much matter, for we had all pretty well done dinner.” Barnes 
takes a note of Mr. Bayham’s dress — his long frock-coat, the riband 
round his neck; and surveys him with an admirable impudence. 
“ Who are these people,” thinks he, “ my uncle has got together 1 ” 
He bows graciously to the Colonel, who asks him to take wine. 
He is so insufferably affable, that every man near him would like 
to give him a beating. 


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All the time of the dinner the host was challenging everybody 
to drink wine, in his honest old-fashioned way, and Mr. Binnie 
Seconding the chief entertainer. Such was the way in England 
and Scotland when they were young men. And when Binnie, 
asking Sir Brian, receives for reply from the Baronet — “Thank 
you, no, my dear sir; I have exceeded already, positively ex- 
ceeded ; ” the poor discomfited gentleman hardly knows whither to 
apply ; but, luckily, Tom Norris, the first mate, comes to his 
rescue, and cries out, “Mr. Binnie, I’ve not had enough, and I’ll 
drink a glass of anything ye like with ye.” The fact is, that Mr. 
Norris has had enough. He has drunk bumpers to the health of 
every member of the company : his glass has been filled scores of 
times by watchful waiters. So has Mr. Bayham absorbed great 
quantities of drink ; but without any visible effect on that veteran 
toper. So has young Clive taken more than is good for him. His 
cheeks are flushed and burning; he is chattering and laughing 
loudly at his end of the- table. Mr. Warrington eyes the lad with 
some curiosity ; and then regards Mr. Barnes with a look of scorn, 
which does not scorch that affable young person. 

I am obliged to confess that the mate of the Indiaman, at an 
early period of the dessert, and when nobody had asked him for 
any such public expression of his opinion, insisted on rising and 
proposing the health of Colonel Newcome, whose virtues he lauded 
outrageously, and whom he pronounced to be one of the best of 
mortal men. Sir Brian looked very much alarmed at the com- 
mencement of this speech, which the mate delivered with immense 
shrieks and gesticulation : but the Baronet recovered during the 
course of the rambling oration, and, at its conclusion, gracefully 
tapped the table with one of those patronising fingers ; and lifting 
up a glass containing at least a thimbleful of claret, said, “My 
dear brother, I drink your health with all my heart, I’m su-ah.” 
The youthful Barnes had uttered many “ Hear, hears ! ” during 
the discourse, with an irony which, with every fresh glass of wine 
he drank, he cared less to conceal. And though Barnes had come 
late he had drunk largely, making up for lost time. 

Those ironical cheers, and all his cousin’s behaviour during 
dinner, had struck young Clive, who was growing Very angry. He 
growled out remarks uncomplimentary to Barnes. His eyes, as 
he looked towards his kinsman, flashed challenges, of which we 
who were watching him could see the warlike purport. Warrington 
looked at Bayham and Pendennis with glances of apprehension. 
We saw that danger was brooding, unless the young man could 
be restrained from his impertinence, and the other from his wine. 

Colonel Newcome said a very few words in reply to his honest 


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141 


friend the chief mate, and there the matter might have ended ; but 
I am sorry to say Mr. Binnie now thought it necessary to rise and 
deliver himself of some remarks regarding the King’s service, coupled 
with the name of Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B., &c. 
— the receipt of which that gallant officer was obliged to acknow- 
ledge in a confusion amounting almost to apoplexy. The glasses 
went whack whack upon the hospitable board ; the evening set in 
for public speaking. Encouraged by his last effort, Mr. Binnie now 
proposed Sir Brian Newcome’s health ; and that Baronet rose and 
uttered an exceedingly lengthy speech, delivered with his wine-glass 
on his bosom. 

Then that sad rogue Bayham must get up, and call earnestly 
and respectfully for silence and the chairman’s hearty sympathy, 
for the few observations which he had to propose. “ Our armies 
had been drunk with proper enthusiasm — such men as he beheld 
around him deserved the applause of all honest hearts, and merited 
the cheers with which their names had been received. (“ Hear, 
hear ! ” from Barnes Newcome sarcastically. “Hear, hear, Hear ! ” 
fiercely from Clive.) But whilst we applauded our army, should 
we forget a profession still more exalted 1 Yes, still more exalted, 
I say in the face of the gallant General opposite ; and that pro- 
fession, I need not say, is the Church. (Applause.) Gentlemen, 
we have among us one who, while partaking largely of the dainties 
on this festive board, drinking freely of the sparkling wine-cup 
which our gallant friend’s hospitality administers to us, sanctifies 
by his presence the feast of which he partakes, inaugurates with 
appropriate benedictions, and graces it, I may say, both before and 
after meat. Gentlemen, Charles Honeyman was the friend of my 
childhood, his father the instructor of my early days. If Frederick 
Bayham’s latter life has been chequered by misfortune, it may be 
that I have forgotten the precepts' which the venerable parent of 
Charles Honeyman poured into an inattentive ear. He, too, as a 
child, was not exempt from faults ; as a young man, I am told, 
not quite free from youthful indiscretions. But in this present 
Anno Domini, we hail Charles Honeyman as a precept and an 
example, as a decus fidei and a lumen ecclesioe (as I told him in 
the confidence of the private circle this morning, and ere I ever 
thought to publish my opinion in this distinguished company). 
Colonel Newcome and Mr. Binnie ! I drink to the health of the 
Reverend Charles Honeyman, A.M. May we listen to many more 
of his sermons, as well as to that admirable discourse with which 
I am sure he is about to electrify us now. May we profit by his 
eloquence ; and cherish in our memories the truths which come 
mended from his tongue ! ” He ceased ; poor Honeyman had to 


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rise on his legs, and gasp out a few incoherent remarks in reply. 
Without a book before him, the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s 
Chapel was no prophet, and the truth is he made poor work of 
his oration. 

At the end of it, he, Sir Brian, Colonel Dobbin, and one of 
the Indian gentlemen quitted the room, in spite of the loud out- 
cries of our generous host, who insisted that the party should not 
break up. “ Close up, gentlemen,” called out honest Newcome, 
“we are not going to part just yet. Let me fill your glass, 
General. You used to have no objection to a glass of wine.” And 
he poured out a bumper for his friend, which the old campaigner 
sucked in with fitting gusto. “ Who will give us a song 1 Binnie, 
give us the ‘Laird of Cockpen.’ It’s capital, my dear General. 
Capital,” the Colonel whispered to his neighbour. 

Mr. Binnie struck up the “ Laird of Cockpen,” without, I am 
bound to say, the least reluctance. He bobbed to one man, and 
he winked to another, and he tossed his glass, and gave all the 
points of his song in a manner which did credit to his simplicity 
and his humour. You haughty Southerners little know how a 
jolly Scotch gentleman can desipere in loco , and how he chirrups 
over his honest cups. I do not say whether it was with the song 
or with Mr. Binnie that we were most amused. It was a good 
commonty, as Christopher Sly says; nor were we sorry when it 
was done. 

Him the first mate succeeded ; after which came a song from 
the redoubted F. Bayham, which he sang with a bass voice which 
Lablache might envy, and of which the chorus was frantically sung 
by the whole company. The cry was then for the Colonel ; on 
which Barnes Newcome, who had been drinking much, started up 
with something like an oath, crying, “ Oh, I can’t stand this.” 

“ Then leave it, confound you ! ” said young Clive, with fury 
in his face. “ If our company is not good enough for you, why 
do you come into it 1 ” 

. “ What’s that ? ” asks Barnes, who was evidently affected by 
wine. Bayham roared “ Silence ! ” and Barnes Newcome, looking 
round with a tipsy toss of the head, finally sat down. 

The Colonel sang, as we have said, with a very high voice, 
using freely the falsetto, after the manner of the tenor singers of 
his day. He chose one of his maritime songs, and got through 
the first verse very well, Barnes wagging his head at the chorus, 
with a “ Bravo ! ” so offensive that Fred Bayham, his neighbour, 
gripped the young man’s arm, and told him to hold his confounded 
tongue. 

The Colonel began his second verse : and here, as will often 


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143 


happen to amateur singers, his falsetto broke down. He was not 
in the least annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly; 
and he was going to try the verse again, when that unlucky Barnes 
first gave a sort of crowing imitation of the song, and then burst 
into a yell of laughter. Clive dashed a glass of wine in his face 
at the next minute,. glass and all; and no one who had watched 
the young man’s behaviour was sorry for the insult. 

I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel New- 
come’s. He started back as if he had himself received the blow 
from his son. “ Gracious God ! ” he cried out. “ My boy insult a 
gentleman at my table ! ” 

“ I’d like to do it again,” says Clive, whose whole body was 
trembling with anger. 

“Are you drunk, sir?” shouted his father. 

“The boy served the young fellow right, sir,” growled Fred 
Bayham in his deepest voice. “ Come along, young man. Stand 
up straight, and keep a civil tongue in your head next time, mind 
you, when you dine with gentlemen. It’s easy to see,” says Fred, 
looking round with a knowing air, “ that this young man hasn’t got 
the usages of society — he’s not been accustomed to it : ” and he led 
the dandy out. 

Others had meanwhile explained the state of the case to the 
Colonel — including Sir Thomas de Boots, who was highly energetic 
and delighted with Clive’s spirit ; and some were for having the 
song to continue ; but the Colonel, puffing his cigar, said, “No. 
My pipe is out. I will never sing again.” So this history will 
record no more of Thomas Newcome’s musical performances. 


CHAPTER XIV 


PARK LAKE 


LIVE woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking 



headache, and by the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to 


v — ' behold his father with solemn face at his bed-foot — a re- 
proving conscience to greet, his waking. 

“You drank too much wine last night, and disgraced yourself, 
sir,” the old soldier said. “ You must get up and eat humble pie 
this morning, my boy.” 

“ Humble what, father 1 ” asked the lad, hardly aware of his 
words, or the scene before him. “ Oh, I’ve got such a headache ! ” 

“ Serve you right, sir. Many a young fellow has had to go on 
parade in the morning with a headache earned overnight. Drink 
this water. Now, jump up. Now, dash the water well over your 
head. There you come ! Make your toilette quickly, and let us 
be off, and find Cousin Barnes before he has left home.” 

Clive obeyed the paternal orders ; dressed himself quickly ; and 
descending, found his father smoking his morning cigar in the apart- 
ment where they had dined the night before, and where the tables 
still were covered with the relics of yesterday’s feast — the emptied 
bottles, the blank lamps, the scattered ashes and fruits, the wretched 
heel-taps that have been lying exposed all night to the air. Who 
does not know the aspect of an expired feast 1 ? 

“The field of action strewed with the dead, my boy,” says 
Clive’s father. “ See, here’s the glass on the floor yet, and a great 
stain of claret on the carpet.” 

“ 0 father,” says Clive, hanging his head down, “ I know I 
shouldn’t have done it. But Barnes Newcome would provoke the 
patience of Job ; and I couldn’t bear to have my father insulted.” 

“I am big enough to fight my own battles, my boy,” the 
Colonel said good-naturedly, putting his hand on the lad’s damp 
head. “ How your head throbs ! If Barnes laughed at my singing, 
depend upon it, sir, there was something ridiculous in it, and he 
laughed because he could not help it. If he behaved ill, we 
should not ; and to a man who is eating our salt too, and is of our 


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“He is ashamed of our blood, father,” cries Clive, still 
indignant. 

“We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must go and 
ask his pardon. Once when I was a young man in India,” the 
father continued very gravely, “ some hot words passed at mess — 
not such an insult as that of last night ; I don’t think I could have 
quite borne that — and people found fault with me for forgiving the 
youngster who had uttered the offensive expressions over his wine. 
Some of my acquaintance sneered at my courage, and that is a hard 
imputation for a young fellow of spirit to bear. But providentially, 
you see, it was war-time, and very soon after I had the good luck 
to show that I was not a povle mouillee , as the French call it; and 
the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave, became my fastest 
friend, and died by my side — it was poor Jack Cutler — at Argaum. 
We must go and ask Barnes Newcome’s pardon, sir, and forgive 
other people’s trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness of our 
own.” His voice sank down as he spoke, and he bowed his head 
reverently. I have heard his son tell the simple story years after- 
wards, with tears in his eyes. 

Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the 
sparkling dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession 
of the grass of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian 
Newcome’s house, where the shutters were just opening to let in 
the day. The housemaid, who was scrubbing the steps of the 
house, and washing its trim feet in a manner which became such a 
polite mansion’s morning toilette, knew Master Clive, and smiled at 
him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two gentlemen 
into Sir Brian’s dining-room, where they proposed to wait until 
Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sat for an hour looking at 
Lawrence’s picture of Lady Ann, leaning over a harp, attired in 
white muslin ; at Harlowe’s portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with her 
two sons simpering at her knees, painted at a time when # the 
Newcome Brothers were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British 
merchants with whom the reader has made acquaintance, but chubby 
children with hair flowing down their backs, and quaint little 
swallow-tailed jackets and nankeen trousers. A splendid portrait 
of the late Earl of Kew in his peer’s robes hangs opposite his 
daughter and her harp. We are writing of George the Fourth’s 
reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine framed print of 
that great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas bag ; the vast 
sideboard, whereon are erected open frames for the support of Sir 
Brian Newcome’s grand silver trays, which on dinner days gleam on 
that festive board, now groans under the weight of Sir Brian’s blue- 
books. An immense receptacle for wine, shaped like a Roman 
8 K 


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sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard. Two people sitting at that 
large dining-table must talk very loud so as to make themselves 
heard across those great slabs of mahogany covered with damask. 
The butler and servants who attend at the table take a long time 
walking round it. I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size 
sitting in that great room at that great table, far apart, in neat 
evening costume, sipping a little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum ; 
and think the great and wealthy are not always to be envied, and 
that there may be more comfort and happiness in a snug parlour, 
where you are served by a brisk little maid, than in a great dark, 
dreary dining-hall, where a funereal major-domo and a couple of 
stealthy footmen minister to you your mutton-chops. They come 
and lay the cloth presently, wide as the main-sheet of “ some tall 
ammiral.” A pile of newspapers and letters for the master of the 
house ; the Newcome Sentinel , old county paper, moderate Con- 
servative, in which our worthy townsman and member is praised, 
his benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full length ; 
the Newcome Independent, in which our precious member is weekly 
described as a ninny, and informed, almost every Thursday morning, 
that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps 
of letters, county papers, Times and Morning Herald for Sir Brian 
Newcome ; little heaps of letters (dinner and soiree cards most of 
these), and Morning Post for Mr. Barnes. Punctually as eight 
o’clock strikes, that young gentleman comes to breakfast ; his father 
will lie yet for another hour — the Baronet’s prodigious labours in 
the House of Commons keeping him frequently out of bed till 
sunrise. 

As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red, and 
perhaps a faint blush might appear on Barnes’s pallid countenance. 
He came in, a handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other ; 
and both hands being thus engaged, he could offer neither to his 
kinsmen. 

“You are come to breakfast, I hope,” he said — calling it 
“bweakfast,” and pronouncing the words with a most languid 
drawl — “or perhaps, you want to see my father? He is never 
out of his room till half-past nine. Harper, did Sir Brian come 
in last night before or after me 1 ” Harper, the butler, thinks 
Sir Brian came in after Mr. Barnes. 

When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned 
round to his uncle in a candid, smiling way, and said, “ The fact 
is, sir, I don’t know when I came home myself very distinctly, and 
can’t, of course, tell about my father. Generally, you know, there 
are two candles left in the hall, you know ; and if there are two, 
you know, I know of course that my father is still at the House. 


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147 


But last night, after that capital song you sang, hang me if I know 
what happened to me. I beg your pardon, sir, I’m shocked at 
having been so overtaken. Such a confounded thing doesn’t happen 
to me once in ten years. I do trust I didn’t do anything rude to 
anybody, for I thought some of your friends the pleasantest fellows 
I ever met in my life ; and as for the claret, ’gad, as if I hadn’t 
had enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of it away with me 
on my shirt-front and waistcoat ! ” 

“ I beg your pardon, Barnes,” Clive said, blushing deeply, “ and 
I’m very sorry indeed for what passed ; I threw it.” 

The Colonel, who had been listening with a queer expression of 
wonder and doubt on his face, here interrupted Mr. Barnes. “ It 
was Clive that — that spilled the wine over you last night,” Thomas 
Newcome said; “the young rascal had drunk a great deal too 
much wine, and had neither the use of his head nor his hands, and 
this morning I have given him a lecture, and he has come to ask 
your pardon for his clumsiness ; and if you have forgotten your 
share in the night’s transaction, I hope you have forgotten his, and 
will accept his hand and his apology.” 

“ Apology ! There’s no apology,” cries Barnes, holding out a 
couple of fingers of his hand, but looking towards the Colonel. “ I 
don’t know what happened any more than the dead. Did we have 
a row? Were there any glasses broken? The best way in such 
cases is to sweep ’em up. We can’t mend them.” 

The Colonel said gravely — “ that he was thankful to find that 
the disturbance of the night before had no worse result.” He 
pulled the tail of Clive’s coat, when that unlucky young blunderer 
was about to trouble his cousin with indiscreet questions or explana- 
tions, and checked his talk. “The other night you saw an old 
man in drink, my boy,” he said, “ and to what shame and degrada- 
tion the old wretch had brought himself. Wine has given you a 
warning too, which I hope you will remember all your life ; no one 
has seen me the worse for drink these forty years, and I hope both 
you young gentlemen will take counsel by an old soldier, who fully 
practises what he preaches, and beseeches you to beware of the 
bottle.” 

After quitting their kinsman, the kind Colonel further improved 
the occasion with his son, and told him, out of his own experience, 
many stories of quarrels, and duels, and wine, — how the wine had 
occasioned the brawls, and the foolish speech overnight the bloody 
meeting at morning; how he had known widows and orphans 
made by hot words uttered in idle orgies; how the truest honour 
was the manly confession of wrong; and the best courage the 
courage to avoid temptation. The humble-minded speaker, whose 


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advice contained the best of all wisdom, that which comes from a 
gentle and reverent spirit, and a pure and generous heart, never 
for once thought of the effect which he might be producing, but 
uttered his simple say according to the truth within him. Indeed, 
he spoke out his mind pretty resolutely on all subjects which moved 
or interested him ; and Clive, his son, and his honest chum, Mr. 
Binnie, who had a great deal more reading and much keener in- 
telligence than the Colonel, were amused often at his naive opinion 
about men, or books, or morals. Mr. Clive had a very fine natural 
sense of humour, which played perpetually round his father’s simple 
philosophy, with kind and- smiling comments. Between this pair 
of friends the superiority of wit lay, almost from the very first, 
on the younger man’s side ; but, on the other hand, Clive felt a 
tender admiration for his father’s goodness, a loving delight in 
contemplating his elder’s character, which he has never lost, and 
which, in the trials of their future life, inexpressibly cheered and 
consoled both of them. Beati illi ! 0 man of the world, whose 

wearied eyes may glance over this page, may those who come after 
you so regard you ! 0 generous boy, who read in it, may you 

have such a friend to trust and cherish in youth, and in future 
days fondly and proudly to remember ! 

Some four or five weeks after the quasi-reconciliation between 
Clive and his kinsman, the chief part of Sir Brian Newcome’s family 
were assembled at the breakfast-table together, where the meal was 
taken in common, and at the early hour of eight (unless the senator 
was kept too late in the House of Commons overnight) ; and Lady 
Ann and her nursery were now returned to London again, little 
Alfred being perfectly set up by a month of Brighton air. It was 
a Thursday morning — on which day of the week, it has been said, 
the Newcome Independent and the Newcome Sentinel both made 
their appearance upon the Baronet’s table. The household from 
above and from below : the maids and footmen from the basement ; 
the nurses, children, and governesses from the attics, — all poured 
into the room at the sound of a certain bell. 

I do not sneer at the purpose for which, at that chiming eight 
o’clock bell, the household is called together. The urns are hissing, 
the plate is shining : the father of the house, standing up, reads 
from a gilt book for three or four minutes in a measured cadence. 
The members of the family are around the table in an attitude of 
decent reverence ; the younger children whisper responses at their 
mother’s knees ; the governess worships a little apart ; the maids 
and the large footmen are in a cluster before their chairs, the upper 
servants performing their devotion on the other side of the side- 
board ; the nurse whisks about the unconscious last-born, and tosses 


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149 

it up and down during the ceremony. I do not sneer at that — at 
the act at which all these people are assembled — it is at the rest 
of the day I marvel : at the rest of the day, and what it brings. 
At the very instant when the voice has ceased speaking, and the 
gilded book is shut, the world begins again, and for the next 
twenty-three hours arid fifty-seven minutes all that household is 
given up to it. The servile squad rises up and marches away to 
its basement, whence, should it happen to be a gala-day, those tall 
gentlemen, at present attired in Oxford mixture, will issue forth 
with flour plastered on their heads, yellow coats, pink breeches, sky- 
blue waistcoats, silver lace, buckles in their shoes, black silk bags 
on their backs, and I don’t know what insane emblems of servility 
and absurd bedizenments of folly. Their very manner of speak- 
ing to what we call their masters and mistresses will be a like 
monstrous masquerade. You know no more of that race which 
inhabits the basement floor, than of the men and brethren of Tim- 
buctoo, to whom some among us send missionaries. If you meet 
some of your servants in the streets (I respectfully suppose for a 
moment that the reader is a person of high fashion and a great 
establishment) you would not know their faces. You might sleep 
under the same roof for half a century, and know nothing about 
them. If they were ill, you would not visit them, though you 
would send them an apothecary and, of course, order that they 
lacked for nothing. You are not unkind, you are not worse than 
your neighbours. Hay, perhaps, if you did go into the kitchen, or 
take tea in the servants’ hall, you would do little good, and only 
bore the folks assembled there. But so it is. With those fellow- 
Christians who have been just saying “ Amen ” to your prayers, you 
have scarcely the community of Charity. They come, you don’t 
know whence; they think and talk you don’t know what; they 
die, and you don’t care, or vice versd. They answer the bell for 
prayers as they answer the bell for coals; for exactly three minutes 
in the day you all kneel together on one carpet — and, the desires 
and petitions of the servants and masters over, the rite called family 
worship is ended. 

Exeunt servants, save those two who warm the newspaper, 
administer the muffins, and serve out the tea. Sir Brian reads his 
letters, and chumps his dry toast. Ethel whispers to her mother, 
she thinks Eliza is looking very ill. Lady Ann asks, “ Which is 
Eliza 1 Is it the woman that was ill before they left town ? If 
she is ill, Mrs. Trotter had better send her away. Mrs. Trotter is 
only a great deal too good-natured. She is always keeping people 
who are ill.” Then her Ladyship begins to read the Morning Post , 
and glances over the names of the persons who were present at 


150 THE NEWCOMES 

Baroness Bosco’s ball, and Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns’s soiree dansante 
in Belgrave Square. 

“Everybody was there,” says Barnes, looking over from his 
paper. 

“ But who is Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns ? ” asks mamma. “ Who 
ever heard of a Mrs. Toddle Tompkyns ? What do people mean by 
going to such a person 1 ” 

“ Lady Popinjay asked the people,” Barnes says gravely. “ The 
thing was really doosed well done. The woman looked frightened ; 
but she’s pretty, and I am told the daughter will have a great lot 
of money.” 

“ Is she pretty, and did you dance with her?” asks Ethel. 

“ Me dance ! ” says Mr. Barnes. We are speaking of a time 
before Casinos were, and when the British youth were by no means 
so active in dancing practice as at the present period. Barnes 
resumed the reading of his county paper, but presently laid it down, 
with an exclamation so brisk and loud that his mother gave a little 
outcry, and even his father looked up from his letters to ask the 
meaning of an oath so unexpected and ungenteel. 

“ My uncle, the Colonel of Sepoys, and his amiable son have 
been paying a visit to Newcome — that’s the news which I have the 
pleasure to announce to you,” says Mr. Barnes. 

“ You are always sneering about our uncle,” breaks in Ethel, 
with impetuous voice, “ and saying unkind things about Clive. Our 
uncle is a dear, good, kind man, and I love him. He came to 
Brighton to see us, and went out every day for hours and hours with 
Alfred ; and Clive, too, drew pictures for him. And he is good, 
and kind, and generous, and honest as his father. And Barnes is 
always speaking ill of him behind his back.” 

“ And his aunt lets very nice lodgings, and is altogether a most 
desirable acquaintance,” says Mr. Barnes. “ What a shame it is 
that we have not cultivated that branch of the family ! ” 

“My dear fellow,” cries Sir Brian, “I have no doubt Miss 
Honeyman is a most respectable person. Nothing is so ungenerous 
as to rebuke a gentleman or a lady on account of their poverty, and 
I coincide with Ethel in thinking that you speak of your uncle and 
his son in terms which, to say the least, are disrespectful.” 

“ Miss Honeyman is a dear little old woman,” breaks in Ethel. 
“Was not she kind to Alfred, mamma, and did not she make him 
nice jelly? And a Doctor of Divinity — you know Clive’s grand- 
father was a Doctor of Divinity, mamma, there’s a picture of him in 
a wig — is just as good as a banker, you know he is.” 

“ Did you bring some of Miss Honeyman’s lodging-house cards 
with you, Ethel ? ” says her brother, “ and had we not better hang 



AN ASTOUNDING PIECE OF INTELLIGENCE 































































































































































































































































. 
























































































THE NEWCOMES 151 

up one or two in Lombard Street ; hers and our other relation’s, 
Mrs. Mason ? ” 

“ My darling love, who is Mrs. Mason?” asks Lady Ann. 

“ Another member of the family, ma’am. She was cousin ” 

“ She was no such thing, sir,” roars Sir Brian. 

“She was relative and housemaid of my grandfather during his 
first marriage. She acted, I believe, as dry nurse to the distinguished 
Colonel of Sepoys, my uncle. She has retired into private life in 
her native town of Newcome, and occupies her latter days by the 
management of a mangle. The Colonel and young pothouse have 
gone down to spend a few days with their elderly relative. It’s all 
here in the paper, by Jove.” Mr. Barnes clenched his fist-, and 
stamped upon the newspaper with much energy. 

“ And so they should go down and see her, and so the Colonel 
should love his nurse, and not forget his relations if they are old 
and poor,” cries Ethel, with a flush on her face, and tears starting 
into her eyes. 

“ Hear what the Newcome papers say about it,” shrieks out 
Mr. Barnes, his voice quivering, his little eyes flashing out scorn. 
“ It’s in both the papers. I dare say it will be in the Times to- 
morrow. By it’s delightful. Our paper only mentions the 

gratifying circumstance ; here is the paragraph : ‘ Lieutenant-Colonel 
Newcome, C.B., a distinguished Indian officer, and elder brother of 
our respected townsman and representative, Sir Brian Newcome, 
Bart., has been staying for the last week at the “ King’s Arms,” in 
our city. He has been visited by the principal inhabitants and 
leading gentlemen of Newcome, and has come among us, as we 
understand, in order to pass a few days with an elderly relative, 
who has been living for many years past in great retirement in this 
place.’ ” 

“ Well, I see no great harm in that paragraph,” says Sir Brian. 
“ I wish my brother had gone to the ‘ Roebuck,’ and not to the 
‘ King’s Arms,’ as the * Roebuck ’ is our house ; but he could not be 
expected to know much about the Newcome inns, as he is a new- 
comer himself. And I think it was very right of the people to call 
on him.” 

“Now hear what the Independent says, and see if you like 
that, sir,” cries Barnes, grinning fiercely ; and he began to read as 
follows : — 

“ Mr. Independent , — I was born and bred a Screwcomite, and 
am naturally proud of everybody and everything which bears the 
revered name of Screwcome. I am a Briton and a man, though I 
have not the honour of a vote for my native borough ; if I had, you 


152 


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may be sure I would give it to our admired and talented represen- 
tative, Don Pomposo Lickspittle Grindpauper Poor House Agincourt 
Screwcome, whose ancestors fought with Julius Caesar against 
William the Conqueror, and whose father certainly wielded a cloth- 
yard shaft in London not fifty years ago. 

“ Don Pomposo, as you know, seldom favours the town of 
Screwcome with a visit. Our gentry are not of ancient birth 
enough to be welcome to a Lady Screwcome. Our manufacturers 
make their money by trade. Oh fie ! how can it be supposed that 
such vulgarians should be received among the aristocratic society 
of Screwcome House % Two balls in the season, and ten dozen of 
gooseberry, are enough for them .” 

“ It’s that scoundrel Parrot,” burst out Sir Brian ; “ because I 
wouldn’t have any more wine of him. — No, it’s Yidler, the apothe- 
cary. By heavens ! Lady Ann, I told you it would be so. Why 
didn’t you ask the Miss Yidlers to your ball 1 ” 

“ They were on the list,” cries Lady Ann, “ three of them ; I 
did everything I could; I consulted Mr. Vidler for poor Alfred, 
and he actually stopped and saw the dear child take the physic. 
Why were they not asked to the ball 1 ?” cries her Ladyship, be- 
wildered ; “I declare to gracious goodness I don’t know.” 

“ Barnes scratched their names,” cries Ethel, “ out of the list, 
mamma. You know you did, Barnes ; you said you had gallipots 
enough.” 

“I don’t think it is like Yidler’s writing,” said Mr. Barnes, 
perhaps willing to turn the conversation. “I think it must be 
that villain Duff, the baker, who made the song about us at the 
last election ; but hear the rest of the paragraph,” and he continued 
to read — 

“ The Screwcomites are at this moment favoured with a visit 
from a gentleman of the Screwcome family, who, having passed all 
his life abroad , is somewhat different from his relatives, whom we 
all so love and honour I This distinguished gentleman, this gallant 
soldier, has come among us, not merely to see our manufactures — 
in which Screwcome can vie with, any city in the North — but an 
old servant and relation of his family, whom he is not above recog- 
nising ; who nursed him in his early days ; who has been living in 
her native place for many years, supported by the generous bounty 

of Colonel N . The gallant officer, accompanied by his son, a 

fine youth, has taken repeated drives round our beautiful environs 
in one of friend Taplow’s (of the ‘ King’s Arms ’) open drags, and 
accompanied by Mrs. M , now an aged lady, who speaks, with 


THE NEWCOMES 153 

tears in her eyes, of the goodness and gratitude of her gallant 
soldier ! 

“One day last week they drove to Screwcome House. Will 
it be believed that, though the house is only four miles distant 
from our city — though Don Pomposo’s family have inhabited it 

these twelve years for four or five months every year — Mrs. M 

saw her cousin’s house for the first time; has never set her eyes 
upon those grandees, except in public places, since the day when 
they honoured the county by purchasing the estate which they 
own ? 

“ I have, as I repeat, no vote for the borough ; but if I had, 
oh, wouldn’t I show my respectful gratitude at the next election, 
and plump for Pomposo. I shall keep my eye upon him, and am, 
Mr. Independent , your constant reader, Peeping Tom.” 

“ The spirit of radicalism abroad in this country,” said Sir 
Brian Newcome, crushing his eggshell desperately, “is dreadful, 
really dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano.” Down 
went the egg-spoon into its crater. “ The worst sentiments are 
everywhere publicly advocated ; the licentiousness of the press 
has reached a pinnacle which menaces us with ruin ; there is no 
law which these shameless newspapers respect; no rank which 
is safe from their attacks; no ancient landmark which the lava 
flood of democracy does not threaten to overwhelm and destroy.” 

“When I was at Spielberg,” Barnes Newcome remarked kindly, 
“ I saw three long-bearded, putty-faced blackguards pacin’ up and 
down a little courtyard, and Count Kettenheimer told me they 
were three damned editors of Milanese newspapers, who had 
had seven years of imprisonment already; and last year when 
Kettenheimer came to shoot at Newcome, I showed him that old 
thief, old Batters, the proprietor of the Independent , and Potts, 
his infernal ally, driving in a dog-cart ; and I said to him, “ Ketten- 
heimer, I wish we had a place where we could lock up some of 
our infernal radicals of the press, or that you could take off those 
two villains to Spielberg ; ” and as we were passin’, that infernal 
Potts burst out laughin’ in my face, and cut one of my pointers 
over the head with his whip. We must do something with that 
Independent , sir.” 

“We must,” says the father solemnly, “we must put it down, 
Barnes ; we must put it down.” 

“ I think,” says Barnes, “ we had best give the railway adver- 
tisements to Batters.” 

“ But that makes the man of the Sentinel so angry,” says the 
elder persecutor of the press. 


154 


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“ Then let us give Tom Potts some shootin’ at any rate ; the 
ruffian is always poachin’ about our covers as it is. Speers should 
be written to, sir, to keep a look-out upon Batters and that villain 
his accomplice, and to be civil to them, and that sort of thing; 
and, damn it ! to be down upon them whenever he sees the oppor- 
tunity.” 

During the above conspiracy for bribing or crushing the in- 
dependence of a great organ of British opinion, Miss Ethel New- 
come held her tongue ; but when her papa closed the conversation, 
by announcing solemnly that he would communicate with Speers, 
Ethel turning to her mother said, “ Mamma, is it true that grand- 
papa has a relation living at Newcome who is old and poor?” 

“ My darling child, how on earth should I know 1 ” says Lady 
Ann. “I dare say Mr. Newcome had plenty of poor relations.” 

“I am sure some on your side, Ann, have been good enough 
to visit me at the bank,” said Sir Brian, who thought his wife’s 
ejaculation was a reflection upon his family, whereas it was the 
statement of a simple fact in Natural History. “ This person was 
no relation of my father’s at all. She was remotely connected with 
his first wife, I believe. She acted as servant to him, and has 
been most handsomely pensioned by the Colonel.” 

“ Who went to her, like a kind, dear, good, brave uncle as he 
is,” cried Ethel; “the very day I go to Newcome I’ll go to see 
her.” She caught a look of negation in her father’s eye. “ I will 
go — that is, if papa will give me leave,” says Miss Ethel. 

“ By Cad, sir,” says Barnes, “ I think it is the very best thing 
she could do ; and the best way of doing it. Ethel can go with 
one of the boys and take Mrs. What-d’you-call-’em a gown, or 
tract, or that sort of thing, and stop that infernal Independent's 
mouth.” 

“If we had gone sooner,” said Miss Ethel simply, “there 
would not have been all this abuse of us in the paper.” To which 
statement her worldly father and brother perforce agreeing, we may 
congratulate good old Mrs. Mason upon the new and polite acquaint- 
ances she is about to make. 


CHAPTER XV 

THE OLD LADIES 


T HE above letter and conversation will show what our active 
Colonel’s movements and history had been since the last 
chapter in which they were recorded. He and Clive took 
the Liverpool mail, and travelled from Liverpool to Newcome with 
a post-chaise and a pair of horses, which landed them at the “ King’s 
Arms.” The Colonel delighted in post-chaising — the rapid transit 
through the country amused him and cheered his spirits. Besides, 
had he not Doctor Johnson’s word for it, that a swift journey in a 
post-chaise was one of the greatest enjoyments in life, and a sojourn 
in a comfortable inn one of its chief pleasures 1 In travelling he 
was as happy and noisy as a boy. He talked to the waiters, 
and made friend? with the landlord ; got all the information which 
he could gather regarding the towns into which he came ; and drove 
about from one sight or curiosity to another with indefatigable good- 
humour and interest. It was good for Clive to see men and cities ; 
to visit mills, manufactories, country seats, cathedrals. He asked 
a hundred questions regarding all things round about him ; and any 
one caring to know who Thomas Newcome was, and what his rank 
and business, found no difficulty in having his questions answered 
by the simple and kindly traveller. 

Mine host of the “ King’s Arms,” Mr. Taplow aforesaid, knew 
in five minutes who his guest was, and the errand on which he 
came. Was not Colonel Newcome’s name painted on all his trunks 
and boxes'? Was not his servant ready to answer all questions 
regarding the Colonel and his son 1 ? Newcome pretty generally in- 
troduced Clive to my landlord, when the latter brought his guest 
his bottle of wine. With old-fashioned cordiality, the Colonel would 
bid the landlord drink a glass of his own liquor, and seldom failed 
to say to him, “ This is my son, sir. We are travelling together 
to see the country. Every English gentleman should see his own 
country first, before he goes abroad, as we intend to do afterwards 
— to make the Grand Tour. And I will thank you to tell me 
what there is remarkable in your town, and what we ought to see 
— antiquities, manufactures, and seats in the neighbourhood. We 


1 56 


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wish to see everything, sir — everything.” Elaborate diaries of 
these home tours are still extant, in Clive’s boyish manuscript and 
the Colonel’s dashing handwriting — quaint records of places visited, 
and alarming accounts of inn bills paid. 

So Mr. Taplow knew in five minutes that his guest was a 
brother of Sir Brian, their Member ; and saw the note despatched 
by an ostler to “Mrs. Sarah Mason, Jubilee Row, ’ announcing that 
the Colonel had arrived, and would be with her after his dinner. 
Mr. Taplow did not think fit to tell his guest that the house Sir 
Brian used — the “ Blue ” house — was the “ Roebuck,” not the 
“ King’s Arms.” Might not the gentlemen be of different politics'? 
Mr. Taplow’s wine knew none. 

Some of the j oiliest fellows in all Newcome use the Boscawen 
Room at the “ King’s Arms ” as their club, and pass numberless 
merry evenings and crack countless jokes there. 

Duff, the baker ; old Mr. Vidler, when he can get away from 
his medical labours (and his hand shakes, it must be owned, very 
much now, and his nose is very red) ; Parrot, the auctioneer ; and 
that amusing dog, Tom Potts, the talented reporter of the Inde- 
pendent — were pretty constant attendants at the “King’s Arms”; 
and Colonel Newcome’s dinner was not over before some of these 
gentlemen knew what dishes he had had ; how he had called for 
a bottle of sherry and a bottle of claret, like a gentleman ; how he 
had paid the post-boys, and travelled with a servant, like a top- 
sawyer; and that he was come to shake hands with an old nurse and 
relative of his family. Every one of those jolly Britons thought well 
of the Colonel for his affectionateness and liberality, and contrasted 
it with the behaviour of the Tory Baronet — their representative. 

His arrival made a sensation in the place. The Blue Club at 
the “ Roebuck ” discussed it, as well as the uncompromising Liberals 
at the “King’s Arms.” Mr. Speers, Sir Brian’s agent, did not 
know how to act, and advised Sir Brian by the next night’s mail. 
The Reverend Doctor Bulders, the rector, left his card. 

Meanwhile, it was not gain or business, but only love and grati- 
tude, which brought Thomas Newcome to his father’s native town. 
Their dinner over, away went the Colonel and Clive, guided by 
the ostler, their previous messenger, to the humble little tenement 
which Thomas Newcome’s earliest friend inhabited. The good old 
woman put her spectacles into her Bible, and flung herself into her 
boy’s arms — her boy who was more than fifty years old. She 
embraced Clive still more eagerly and frequently than she kissed 
his father. She did not know her Colonel with them whiskers. 
Clive was the very picture of the dear boy as he had left her 
almost two score years ago. And as fondly as she hung on the 


THE NEWCOMES 


15 / 

boy, her memory had ever clung round' that early time when they 
were together. The good soul told endless tales of her darling’s 
childhood, his frolics and beauty. To-day was uncertain to her, 
but the past was still bright and clear. As they sat prattling 
together over the bright tea-table, attended by the trim little maid, 
whose services the Colonel’s bounty secured for his old nurse, the 
kind old creature insisted on having Clive by her side. Again and 
again she would think he was actually her own boy, forgetting, in 
that sweet and pious hallucination, that the bronzed face, and 
thinned hair, and melancholy eyes of the veteran before her, were 
those of her nursling of old days. So for near half the space of 
man’s allotted life he had been absent from her, and day and night 
wherever he was, in sickness or health, in sorrow or danger, her 
innocent love and prayers had attended the absent darling. Not 
in vain, not in vain, does he live whose course is so befriended. 
Let us be thankful for our race, as we think of the love that blesses 
some of us. Surely it has something of Heaven in it, and angels 
celestial may rejoice in it, and admire it. 

Having nothing whatever to do, our Colonel’s movements are 
of course exceedingly rapid, and he has the very shortest time to 
spend in any single place. He can spare but that evening, Saturday, 
and the next day, Sunday, when he will faithfully accompany his 
dear old nurse to church. And what a festival is that day for her, 
when she has her Colonel and that beautiful brilliant boy of his 
by her side, and Mr. Hicks the curate, looking at him, and the 
venerable Doctor Bulders himself eyeing him from the pulpit, and 
all the neighbours fluttering and whispering, to be sure, w T ho can 
be that fine military gentleman, and that splendid young man 
sitting by old Mrs. Mason, and leading her so affectionately out of 
church ? That Saturday and Sunday the Colonel will pass with 
good old Mason, but on Monday he must be off : on Tuesday he 
must be in London, he has important business in London, — in fact 
Tom Hamilton, of his regiment, comes up for election at the 
“ Oriental ” on that day, and on such an occasion could Thomas 
Newcome be absent? He drives away from the “King’s Arms” 
through a row of smirking chambermaids, smiling waiters, and 
thankful ostlers, accompanied to the post-chaise, of which the 
obsequious Taplow shuts the door, and the Boscawen Boom pro- 
nounces him that night to be a trump ; and the whole of the busy 
town, ere the next day is over, has heard of his coming and depart- 
ure, praised his kindliness and generosity, and no doubt contrasted 
it with the different behaviour of the Baronet, his brother, w 7 ho 
has gone for some time by the ignominious sobriquet of Screwcome, 
in the neighbourhood of his ancestral hall. 


158 


THE NEWCOMES 


Dear old nurse Mason will have a score of visits to make and to 
receive, at all of which you may be sure that triumphal advent of 
the Colonel’s will be discussed and admired. Mrs. Mason will show 
her beautiful new India shawl, and her splendid Bible with the 
large print, and the affectionate inscription, from Thomas Newcome 
to his dearest old friend ; her little maid will exhibit her new gown ; 
the curate will see the Bible, and Mrs. Bulders will admire the 
shawl ; and the old friends and humble cotoapanions of the good old 
lady, as they take their Sunday walks by the pompous lodge-gates 
of Newcome Park, which stand, with the Baronet’s new-fangled 
arms over them, gilded, and filigreed, and barred, will tell their 
stories, too, about the kind Colonel and his hard brother. When 
did Sir Brian ever visit a poor old woman’s cottage, or his bailiff 
exempt from the rent? What good action, except a few thin 
blankets and beggarly coal and soup tickets, did Newcome Park 
ever do for the poor ? And as for the Colonel’s wealth, Lord bless 
you, he’s been in India these five-and-thirty years ; the Baronet’s 
money is a drop in the sea to his. The Colonel is the kindest, the 
best, the richest of men. These facts and opinions, doubtless, 
inspired the eloquent pen of “ Peeping Tom,” when he indited the 
sarcastic epistle to the Newcome Independent , which we perused 
over Sir Brian Newcome’s shoulder in the last chapter. 

And you may be sure Thomas Newcome had not been many 
weeks in England before good little Miss Honeyman, at Brighton, 
was favoured with a visit from her dear Colonel. The envious 
Gawler scowling out of his bow-window, where the fly-blown card 
still proclaimed that his lodgings were unoccupied, had the mortifi- 
cation to behold a yellow post-chaise drive up to Miss Honeyman’s 
door, and, having discharged two gentlemen from within, trot away 
with servant and baggage to some house of entertainment other than 
Gawler’s. Whilst this wretch was cursing his own ill fate, and 
execrating yet more deeply Miss Honeyman’s better fortune, the 
worthy little lady was treating her Colonel to a sisterly embrace 
and a solemn reception. Hannah, the faithful housekeeper, was 
presented, and had a shake of the hand. The Colonel knew all 
about Hannah : ere he had been in England a week, a basket con- 
taining pots of jam of her confection, and a tongue of Hannah’s 
curing, had arrived for the Colonel. That very night when his 
servant had lodged Colonel Newcome’s effects at the neighbouring 
hotel, Hannah was in possession of one of the Colonel’s shirts, she 
and her mistress having previously conspired to make a dozen of 
those garments for the family benefactor. 

All the presents which Newcome had ever transmitted to his 
sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and 


THE NEWCOMES 


159 

lavender in which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine 
hot day in June, but, I promise you, Miss Honeyman wore her 
blazing scarlet Cashmere shawl ; her great brooch, representing the 
Taj of Agra, was in her collar ; and her bracelets (she used to say, 
“ I am given to understand they are called bangles, my dear, by 
the natives ”) decorated the sleeves round her lean old hands, which 
trembled with pleasure as they received the kind grasp of the 
Colonel of colonels. How busy those hands had been that morning! 
What custards they had whipped ! — what a triumph of pie-crusts 
they had achieved ! Before Colonel Newcome had been ten minutes 
in the house, the celebrated veal-cutlets made their appearance. 
Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of his coming 1 
Had not Mr. Kuhn, the affable foreign gentleman of the first-floor 
lodgers, prepared a French dish? Was not Sally on the look-out, 
and instructed to put the cutlets on the fire at the very moment 
when the Colonel’s carriage drove up to her mistress’s door? The 
good woman’s eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice shook, as, 
holding up a bright glass of madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the 
Colonel’s health. “I promise you, my dear Colonel,” says she, 
nodding her head, adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace 
and ribands, “ I promise you, that I can drink your health in good 
wine ! ” The wine was of his own sending, and so were the China 
fire-screens, and the sandalwood workbox, and the ivory card-case, 
and those magnificent pink and white chess-men, carved like little 
sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on elephants’ backs, George 
the Third and his Queen in pink ivory, against the Emperor of 
C^ina and lady in white — the delight of Clive’s childhood, the chief 
ornament of the old spinster’s sitting-room. 

Miss Honeyman’s little feast was pronounced to be the per- 
fection of cookery ; and when the meal was over, came a noise of 
little feet at the parlour door, which being opened, there appeared : 
first, a tall nurse with a dancing baby ; second and third, two little 
girls with little frocks, little trousers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and 
blue ribands to match ; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered 
from his illness, and holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel New- 
come, blushing like a rose. 

Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling 
out the names of “Miss Newcomes, Master Newcomes, to see the 
Colonel, if you please, ma’am,” bobbing a curtsey, and giving a 
knowing nod to Master Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. 
Hannah, too, was in new attire, all crisp and rustling, in the 
Colonel’s honour. Miss Ethel did not cease blushing as she ad- 
vanced towards her uncle ; and the honest campaigner started up, 
blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little Alfred, of whom he 


l6‘o 


THE NEWCOMES 


was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose, laughed, nodded 
at Ethel, and ate gingerbread nuts all at the same time. As for 
Colonel Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love with each 
other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess 
of China. 

I have turned away one artist : the poor creature was utterly 
incompetent to depict the sublime, graceful, and pathetic personages 
and events with which this history will most assuredly abound, and 
I doubt whether even the designer engaged in his place can make 
such a portrait of Miss Ethel Newcome as shall satisfy her friends 
and her own sense of justice. That blush which we have indicated, 
he cannot render. How are you to copy it with a steel point and 
a ball of printer’s ink ? That kindness which lights up the Colonel’s 
eyes ; gives an expression to the very wrinkles round about them ; 
shines as a halo round his face, — what artist can paint it 1 ? The 
painters of old, when they portrayed sainted personages, were fain 
to have recourse to compasses and gold-leaf — as if celestial splendour 
could be represented by Dutch metal ! As our artist cannot come 
up to this task, the reader will be pleased to let his fancy paint for 
itself the look of courtesy for a woman, admiration for a young 
beauty, protection for an innocent child, all of which are expressed 
upon the Colonel’s kind face, as his eyes are set upon Ethel 
Newcome. 

“ Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle,” 
says Miss Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of 
laying aside that fine blush which she brought into the room, and 
which is her pretty symbol of youth, and modesty, and beauty. 

He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown 
palm, where it looked all the whiter : he cleared the grizzled 
mustachios from his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little 
white hand with a great deal of grace and dignity. There was no 
point of resemblance, and yet a something in the girl’s look, voice, 
and movements, which caused his heart to thrill, and an image out 
of the past to rise up and salute him. The eyes which had 
brightened his youth (and which he saw in his dreams and thoughts 
for faithful years afterwards, as though they looked at him out of 
heaven) seemed to shine upon him after five-and-thirty years. He 
remembered such a fair bending neck and clustering hair, such a 
light foot and airy figure, such a slim hand lying in his own — and 
now parted from it with a gap of ten thousand long days between. 
It is an old saying, that we forget nothing ; as people in fever begin 
suddenly to talk the language of their infancy, we are stricken by 
memory sometimes, and old affections rush back on us as vivid as 
in the time when they were our daily talk, when their presenee 


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161 


gladdened our eyes, when their accents thrilled in our ears, when 
with passionate tears and grief we flung ourselves upon their 
hopeless corpses. Parting is death, at least as far as life is 
concerned. A passion comes to an end; it is carried off in a 
coffin, or weeping in a post-chaise; it drops out of life one way 
or other, and the earth-clods close over it, and we see it no more. 
But it has been part of our souls, and it is dternal. Does a 
mother not love her dead infant! a man his lost mistress'? with 
the fond wife nestling at his side, — yes, with twenty children 
smiling round her knee. No doubt, as the old soldier held the 
girl’s hand in his, the little talisman led him back to Hades, and he 
saw Ldonore. . . . 

“How do you do, uncle!” say girls Nos. 2 and 3 in a pretty 
little infantile chorus. He drops the talisman, he is back in common 
life again — the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse 
babbles a welcome. Alfred looks up for a while at his uncle in 
the white trousers, and then instantly proposes that Clive should 
make him some drawings ; and is on his knees at the next 
moment. He is always climbing on somebody or something, 
or winding over chairs, curling through banisters, standing on some- 
body’s head, or his own head, — as his convalescence advances, his 
breakages are fearful. Miss Honeyman and Hannah will talk 
about his dilapidations for years after the little chap has left them. 
When he is a jolly young officer in the Guards, and comes to see 
them at Brighton, they will show him the blue dragon Chayny 
jar on which he would sit, and over which he cried so fearfully 
upon breaking. 

When this little party has gone out smiling to take its walk on 
the sea-shore, the Colonel sits down and resumes the interrupted 
dessert. Miss Honeyman talks of the children and their mother, 
and the merits of Mr. Kuhn, and the beauty of Miss Ethel, glancing 
significantly towards Clive, who has had enough of gingerbread-nuts 
and dessert and wine, and whose youthful nose is by this time at 
the window. What kind-hearted woman, young or old, does not 
love match-making ! 

The Colonel, without lifting his eyes from the table, says “ she 
reminds him of — of somebody he knew once.” 

“ Indeed ! ” cries Miss Honeyman, and thinks Emma must 
have altered very much after going to India, for she had fair 
hair, and white eyelashes, and not a pretty foot certainly — but, 
my dear good lady, the Colonel is not thinking of the late Mrs. 
Casey. 

He has taken a fitting quantity of the madeira, the artless 
greeting of the people here, young and old, has warmed his heart, 
8 L 


162 


THE NEWCOMES 


and he goes upstairs to pay a visit to his sister-in-law, to whom 
he makes his most courteous bow as becomes a lady of her rank. 
Ethel takes her place quite naturally beside him during his visit. 
Where did he learn those fine manners which all of us who knew 
him admired in him'? He had a natural simplicity, an habitual 
practice of kind and generous thoughts ; a pure mind, and therefore 
above hypocrisy find affectation — perhaps those French people with 
whom he had been intimate in early life had imparted to him some 
of the traditional graces of their vieille cour — certainly his half- 
brothers had inherited none such. “ What is this that Barnes 
has written about his uncle, that the Colonel is ridiculous ? ” Lady 
Ann said to her daughter that night. “Your uncle is adorable. 
I have never seen a more perfect Grand Seigneur. He puts me 
in mind of my grandfather, though grandpapa’s grand manner was 
more artificial, and his voice spoiled by snuff. See the Colonel. 
He smokes round the garden, but with what perfect grace ! This 
is the man Uncle Hobson, and your poor dear papa, have repre- 
sented to us as a species of bear ! Mr. Newcome, who has himself 
the ton of a waiter ! The Colonel is perfect. What can Barnes 
mean by ridiculing him ? I wish Barnes had such a distinguished 
air ; but he is like his poor dear papa. Que voulez-vous, my love ? 
The Newcomes are honourable, the Newcomes are wealthy ; but 
distinguished ? no. I never deluded myself with that notion when 
I married your poor dear papa. At once I pronounce Colonel New- 
come a person to be in every way distinguished by us. On our 
return to London I shall present him to all our family : poor good 
man ! let him see that his family have some presentable relations 
besides those whom he will meet at Mrs. Newcome’s, in Bryanstone 
Square. You must go to Bryanstone Square immediately we return 
to London. You must ask your cousins and their governess, and 
we will give them a little party. Mrs. Newcome is insupportable, 
but we must never forsake our relatives, Ethel. When you come 
out you will have to dine there, and go to her ball. Every young 
lady in your position in the world has sacrifices to make, and duties 
to her family to perform. Look at me. Why did I marry your 
poor dear papa? From duty. Has your Aunt Fanny, who ran 
away with Captain Canonbury, been happy? They have eleven 
children, and are starving at Boulogne. Think of three of Fanny’s 
boys in yellow stockings at the Bluecoat School. Your papa got 
them appointed. I am sure my papa would have gone mad, if 
he had seen that day ! She came with one of the poor wretches 
to Park Lane ; but I could not see them. My feelings would not 
allow me. When my maid, — I had a French maid then — Louise, you 
remember j her conduct was abominable : so was Prdville’s — when 


THE NEWCOMES 


163 


she came and said that my Lady Fanny was below with a young 
gentleman, qui portait des has jaunes, I could not see the child. 
I begged her to come up in my room ; and, absolutely that I might 
not offend her, I went to bed. That wretch Louise met her at 
Boulogne and told her afterwards. Good-night, we must not stand 
chattering here any more. Heaven bless you, my darling ! Those 
are the ColoneTs windows ! Look, he is smoking on his balcony — 
that must be Clive’s room. Clive is a good kind boy. It was 
very kind of him to draw so many pictures for Alfred. Put the 
drawings away, Ethel. Mr. Smee saw some in Park Lane, and 
. said they showed remarkable genius. What a genius your Aunt 
Emily had for drawing ; but it was flowers ! I had no genius in 
particular, so mamma used to say — and Doctor Belper said, ‘My 
dear Lady Walham’ (it was before my grandpapa’s death), ‘has 
Miss Ann a genius for sewing buttons and making puddens 1 ?’ — 
puddens he pronounced it. Good-night, my own love. Blessings, 
blessings on my Ethel ! ” 

The Colonel from his balcony saw the slim figure of the retreat- 
ing girl, and looked fondly after her : and as the smoke of his cigar 
floated in the air, he formed a fine castle in it, whereof Clive was 
lord, and that pretty Ethel lady. “ What a frank, generous, bright 
young creature is yonder ! ” thought he. “ How cheery and gay 
she is ; how good to Miss Honeyman, to whom she behaved with just 
the respect that was the old lady’s due — how affectionate with her 
brothers and sisters ! What a sweet voice she has ! What a pretty 
little white hand it is ! When she gave it me, it looked like a little 
white bird lying in mine. I must wear gloves, by Jove I must, and 
my coat is old-fashioned, as Binnie says ; what a fine match might 
be made between that child and Clive ! She reminds me of a pair 
of eyes I haven’t seen these forty years. I would like to have Clive 
married to her; to see him out of the scrapes and dangers that 
young fellows encounter, and safe with such a sweet girl as that. 
If God had so willed it, I might have been happy myself, and 
could have made a woman happy. But the Fates were against 
me. I should like to see Clive happy, and then say Nunc 
dimittis. I shan’t want anything more to-night, Kean, and you 
can go to bed.” 

“ Thank you, Colonel,” says Kean, who enters, having prepared 
his master’s bedchamber, and is retiring when the Colonel calls 
after him : 

“ I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old 'l ” 

“ Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,” says the man. 

“ Is it older than other people’s coats ? ” — Kean is obliged gravely 
to confess that the Colonel’s coat is very queer. 


164 


THE NEWCOMES 


“Get me another coat, then — see that I don’t do anything 
or wear anything unusual I have been so long out of Europe 
that I don’t know the customs here, and am not above learning.” 

Kean retires, vowing that his master is an old trump ; which 
opinion he had already expressed to Mr. Kuhn, Lady Hann’s man, 
over a long potation which those two gentlemen had taken together. 
And, as all of us, in one way or another, are subject to this domestic 
criticism, from which not the most exalted can escape, I say, lucky 
is the man whose servants speak well of him. 


CHAPTER XVI 


IN WHICH MR. SHERRICK LETS HIS HOUSE IN 
FITZROY SQUARE 

I N spite of the sneers of the Newcome Independent , and the 
Colonel’s unlucky visit to his nurse’s native place, he still re- 
mained in high favour in Park Lane ; where the worthy gentle- 
man paid almost daily visits, and was received with welcome and 
almost affection, at least by the ladies and the children of the house. 
Who was it that took the children to Astley’s but Uncle Newcome? 
I saw him there in the midst of a cluster of these little people, all 
children together. He laughed delighted at Mr. Merryman’s jokes 
in the ring. He beheld the Battle of Waterloo with breathless 
interest, and was amazed — amazed, by Jove, sir — at the prodigious 
likeness of the principal actor to the Emperor Napoleon, whose tomb 
he had visited on his return from India, as it pleased him to tell 
iiis little audience who sat clustering round him : the little girls, 
Sir Brian’s daughters, holding each by a finger of his hands ; young 
Masters Alfred and Edward clapping and hurraing by his side; 
while Mr. Clive and Miss Ethel sat in the back of the box enjoying 
the scene, but with that decorum which belonged to their superior 
age and gravity. As for Clive, he was in these matters much older 
than the grizzled old warrior his father. It did one good to hear 
the Colonel's honest laughs at Clown’s jokes, and to see the tenderness 
and simplicity with which he watched over this happy brood of 
young ones. How lavishly did he supply them with sweetmeats 
between the acts ! There he sat in the midst of them, and ate 
an orange himself with perfect satisfaction. I wonder what 
sum of money Mr. Barnes Newcome would have taken to sit 
for five hours with his young brothers and sisters in a public box 
at the theatre and eat an orange in the face of the audience ? 
When little Alfred went to Harrow, you may be sure Colonel 
Newcome and Clive galloped over to see the little man and tipped 
him royally. What money is better bestowed than that of a 
schoolboy’s tip ? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in 
after days? It blesses him that gives and him that takes. Re- 
member how happy such benefactions made you in your own early 


166 THE NEWCOMES 

time, and go off on the very first fine day and tip your nephew at 
school ! 

The Colonel’s organ of benevolence was so large, that he would 
have liked to administer bounties to the young folks his nephews 
and nieces in Bryanstone Square, as well as to their cousins in Park 
Lane ; but Mrs. Newcome was a great deal too virtuous to admit 
of such spoiling of children. She took the poor gentleman to task 
for an attempt upon her boys when those lads came home for their 
holidays, and caused them ruefully to give back the shining gold 
sovereign with which their uncle had thought to give them a 
treat. 

“ I do not quarrel with other families,” says she ; “I do not 
allude to other families ; ” meaning, of course, that she did not 
allude to Park Lane. “ There may be children who are allowed to 
receive money from their father’s grown-up friends. There may be 
children who hold out their hands for presents, and thus become 
mercenary in early life. I make no reflections with regard to other 
households. I only look, and think, and pray for the welfare of 
my own beloved ones. They want for nothing. Heaven has 
bounteously furnished us with every comfort, with every elegance, 
with every luxury. Why need we be bounden to others, who have 
been ourselves so amply provided ? I should consider it ingratitude, 
Colonel Newcome, want of proper spirit, to allow my boys to accept 
money. Mind, I make no allusions. When they go to school they 
receive a sovereign apiece from their father, and a shilling a week, 
which is ample pocket-money. When they are at home, I desire 
that they may have rational amusements : I send them to the 
Polytechnic with Professor Hickson, who kindly explains to them 
some of the marvels of science and the wonders of machinery. I 
send them to the picture galleries and the British Museum. I go 
with them myself to the delightful lectures at the Institution in 
Albemarle Street. I do not desire that they should attend theatrical 
exhibitions. I do not quarrel with those who go to plays ; far from 
it ! Who am I that I should venture to judge the conduct of others ? 
When you wrote from India, expressing a wish that your boy should 
be made acquainted with the works of Shakspeare, I gave up my 
own opinion at once. Should I interpose between a child and his 
father ] I encouraged the boy to go to the play, and sent him to 
the pit with one of our footmen.” 

“ And you tipped him very handsomely, my dear Maria, too,” 
said the good-natured Colonel, breaking in upon her sermon ; but 
Virtue was not to be put off in that way. 

“ And why, Colonel Newcome,” Virtue exclaimed, laying a 
pudgy little hand on its heart ; “ why did I treat Clive so 



AN EVENING AT ASTLEV’S. 




















































THE NEWCOMES 


167 


Because I stood towards him in loco parentis ; because he was, as 
a child to me, and I to him as a mother. I indulged him more 
than my own. I loved him with a true maternal tenderness. 
Then he was happy to come to our house : then perhaps Park 
Lane was not so often open to him as Bryanstone Square : but I 
make no allusions. Then he did not go six times to another house 
for once that he came to mine. He was a simple, confiding, 
generous boy. He was not dazzled by worldly rank or titles of 
splendour. He could not find these in Bryanstone Square A 
merchant’s wife, a country lawyer’s daughter — I could not be 
expected to have my humble board surrounded by titled aristo- 
cracy ; I would not if I could. I love my own family too well ; 
I am too honest, too simple, — let me own it at once, Colonel New- 
come, too proud ! And now, now his father has come to England, 
and I have resigned him, and he meets with no titled aristocrats at 
my house, and he does not come here any more.” 

Tears rolled out of her little eyes as she spoke, and she covered 
her round face "with her pocket-handkerchief. # 

Had Colonel Newcome read the paper that morning, he might 
have seen amongst what are called the fashionable announcements, 
the cause, perhaps, why his sister-in-law had exhibited so much 
anger and virtue. The Morning Post stated that yesterday Sir 
Brian and Lady Newcome entertained at dinner his Excellency the 
Persian Ambassador and Bucksheesh Bey; the Right Honourable 
Cannon Rowe, President of the Board of Control, and Lady Louisa 

Rowe ; the Earl of H , the Countess of Kew, the Earl of Kew, 

Sir Curry Baugh ton, Major-General and Mrs. Hooker, Colonel New- 
come, and Mr. Horace Fogey. Afterwards her ladyship had an 
assembly, which was attended by &c. &c. 

This catalogue of illustrious names had been read by Mrs. 
Newcome to her spouse at breakfast, with such comments as she 
was in the habit of making. 

“ The President of the Board of Control, the Chairman of the 
Court of Directors, and ex-Governor-General of India, and a whole 
regiment of Kews. By Jove, Maria, the Colonel is in good com- 
pany,” cries Mr. Newcome with a laugh. “That’s the sort of 
dinner you should have given him. Some people to talk about 
India. When he dined with us he was put between old Lady 
Wormely and Professor Roots. I don’t wonder at his going to 
sleep after dinner. I was off myself once or twice during that 
confounded long argument between Professor Roots and Dr. Windus. 
That Windus is the deuce to talk.” 

“ Dr. Windus is a man of science, and his name is of European 
celebrity ! ” says Maria solemnly. “ Any intellectual person would 


168 THE NEWCOMES 

prefer such company to the titled nobodies into whose family your 
brother has married.” 

“ There you go, Polly ; you are always having a shy at Lady 
Ann and her relations,” says Mr. Newcome good-naturedly. 

“ A shy ! How can you use such vulgar words, Mr. Newcome ? 
What have I to do with Sir Brian’s titled relations? I do not 
value nobility. I prefer people of science — people of intellect — 
to all the rank in the world.” 

“ So you do,” says Hobson her spouse. “You have your party 
— Lady Ann has her party. You take your line — Lady Ann takes 
her line. You are a superior woman, my dear Polly ; every one 
knows that. I’m a plain country farmer, I am. As long as you 
are happy, I am happy too. The people you get to dine here may 
talk Greek or algebra for what I care. By Jove, my dear, I think 
you can hold your own with the best of them.” 

“ I have endeavoured by assiduity to make up for time lost, 
and an early imperfect education,” says Mrs. Newcome. “You 
married a poor country lawyer’s daughter. You did not seek a 
partner in the Peerage, Mr. Newcome.” 

“No, no. Not such a confounded flat as that,” cries Mr. 
Newcome, surveying his plump partner behind her silver teapot, 
with eyes of admiration. 

“ I had an imperfect education, but I knew its blessings, and 
have, I trust, endeavoured to cultivate the humble talents which 
Heaven has given me, Mr. Newcome.” 

“ Humble, by Jove ! ” exclaims the husband. “No gammon 
of that sort, Polly. You know well enough that you are a superior 
woman. I ain’t a superior man. I know that : one is enough in 
a family. I leave the reading to you, my dear. Here comes my 
horses. I say, I wish you’d call on Lady Ann to-day. Do go and 
see her now, that’s a good girl. I know she is flighty, and that ; 
and Brian’s back is up a little. But he ain’t a bad fellow ; and I 
wish I could see you and his wife better friends.” 

On his way to the City, Mr. Newcome rode to look at the new 
house, No. 120 Fitzroy Square, which his brother, the Colonel, had 
taken in conjunction with that Indian friend of his, Mr. Binnie. 
Shrewd old cock, Mr. Binnie. Has brought home a good bit of 
money from India. Is looking out for safe investments. Has been 
introduced to Newcome Brothers. Mr. Newcome thinks very well 
of the Colonel’s friend. 

The house is vast but, it must be owned, melancholy. Not 
long since it was a ladies’ school, in an unprosperous condition. 
The scar left by Madame Latour’s brass-plate may still be seen on 
the tall black door, cheerfully ornamented, in the style of the end 


THE NEWCOMES 


169 

of the last century, with a funereal urn in the centre of the entry, 
and garlands, and the skulls of rams at each corner. Madame 
Latour, who at one time actually kept a large yellow coach, and 
drove her parlour young ladies in the Regent’s Park, was an exile 
from her native country (Islington was her birthplace, and Grigson 
her paternal name), and an outlaw at the suit of Samuel Sherrick : 
that Mr. Sherrick whose wine-vaults undermine Lady Whittlesea’s 
Chapel where the eloquent Honeyman preaches. 

The house is Mr. Sherrick’s house. Some say his name is 
Shadrach, and pretend to have known him as an orange-boy, after- 
wards as a chorus-singer in the theatres, afterwards as secretary to 
a great tragedian. I know nothing of these stories. He may or 
he may not be a partner of Mr. Campion, of Shepherd’s Inn : he 
has a handsome villa, Abbey Road, St. John’s Wood, entertains 
good company, rather loud, of the sporting sort, rides and drives 
very showy horses, has boxes at the opera whenever he likes, and 
free access behind the scenes ; is handsome, dark, bright-eyed, with 
a quantity of jewellery, and a tuft to his chin ; sings sweetly senti- 
mental songs after dinner. Who cares a fig what was the religion 
of Mr. Sherrick’s ancestry, or what the occupation of his youth 1 
Mr. Honeyman, a most respectable man surely, introduced Sherrick 
to the Colonel and Binnie. 

Mr. Sherrick stocked their cellar with some of the wine over 
which Honeyman preached such lovely sermons. It was not dear ; 
it was not bad when you dealt with Mr. Sherrick for wine alone. 
Going into his market with ready money in your hand, as our 
simple friends did, you were pretty fairly treated by Mr. Sherrick. 

The house being taken, we may be certain there was fine amuse- 
ment for Clive, Mr. Binnie, and the Colonel, in frequenting the 
sales, in the inspection of upholsterers’ shops, and the purchase of 
furniture for the new mansion. It was like nobody else’s house. 
There were three masters with four or five servants under them. 
Irons for the Colonel and his son ; a smart boy with boots for Mr. 
Binnie ; Mrs. Irons to cook and keep house, with a couple of maids 
under her. The Colonel, himself, was great at making hash mutton, 
hot-pot, curry, and pillau. What cosy pipes did we not smoke in 
the dining-room, in the drawing-room, or where we would ! What 
pleasant evenings did we not have with Mr. Binnie’s books and 
Schiedam ! Then there were the solemn state dinners, at most of 
which the writer of this biography had a corner. 

Clive had a tutor — Grindley of Corpus — whom we recommended 
to him, and with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his 
brains very much; but his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. 
He sketched the horses, he sketched the dogs; all the servants, 


170 


THE NEWCOMES 


from the blear-eyed boot-boy to the rosy-cheeked lass, Mrs. Kean’s 
niece, whom that virtuous housekeeper was always calling to come 
downstairs. He drew his father in all postures — asleep, on foot, 
on horseback ; and jolly little Mr. Binnie, with his plump legs on 
a chair, or jumping briskly on the back of the cob which he rode. 
He should have drawn the pictures for this book, but that he no 
longer condescends to make sketches. Young Ridley was his daily 
friend now ; and after Grindley’s classics and mathematics in the 
morning, this pair of young men would constantly attend Gandish’s 
Drawing Academy, where, to be sure, Ridley passed many hours at 
work on his art before his young friend and patron could be spared 
from his books to his pencil. 

“ Oh,” says Clive, if you talk to him now about those early days, 
“ it was a jolly time ! I do not believe there was any young fellow 
in London so happy.” And there hangs up in his painting-room 
now a head, painted at one sitting, of a man rather bald, with hair 
touched with grey, with a large moustache, and a sweet mouth half 
smiling beneath it, and melancholy eyes ! and Clive shows that 
portrait of their grandfather to his children, and tells them that the 
whole world never saw a nobler gentleman. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A SCHOOL OF ART 

B RITISH Art either finds her peculiar nourishment in melan- 
choly, and loves to fix her abode in desert places ; or, it may 
be, her purse is but slenderly furnished, and she is forced to 
put up with accommodations rejected by more prosperous callings. 
Some of the most dismal quarters of the town are colonised by her 
disciples and professors. In walking through streets which may 
have been gay and polite when ladies’ chairmen jostled each other 
on the pavement, and link-boys with their torches lighted the beaux 
over the mud, who has not remarked the artist’s invasion of those 
regions once devoted to fashion and gaiety 1 ? Centre windows of 
drawing-rooms are enlarged so as to reach up into bedrooms — bed- 
rooms where Lady Betty has had her hair powdered, and where the 
painter’s north-light now takes possession of the place which her 
toilet-table occupied a hundred years ago. There are degrees in 
decadence : after the Fashion chooses to emigrate, and retreats from 
Soho or Bloomsbury, let us say, to Cavendish Square, physicians 
come and occupy the vacant houses, which still have a respectable 
look, the windows being cleaned, and the knockers and plates kept 
bright, and the doctor’s carriage rolling round the square, almost as 
fine as the countess’s, which has whisked away her ladyship to 
other regions. A boarding-house, mayhap, succeeds the physician, 
who has followed after his sick folks into the new country ; and 
then Dick Tinto comes with his dingy brass-plate, and breaks in his 
north window, and sets up his sitters’ throne. I love his honest 
moustache, and jaunty velvet jacket, his queer figure, his queer 
vanities, and his kind heart. Why should he not suffer his ruddy 
ringlets to fall over his shirt-collar ? Why should he deny himself 
his velvet ? it is but a kind of fustian which costs him eighteen- 
pence a yard. He is naturally what he is, and breaks out into 
costume as spontaneously as a bird sings, or a bulb bears a tulip. 
And as Dick, under yonder terrific appearance of waving cloak, 
bristling beard, and shadowy sombrero, is a good kindly simple 
creature, got up at a very cheap rate, so his life is consistent with 
his dress; he gives his genius a darkling swagger, and a romantic 


172 


THE NEWCOMES 


envelope, which, being removed, you find, not a bravo, but a kind 
chirping soul ; not a moody poet avoiding mankind for the better 
company of his own great thoughts, but a jolly little chap who has 
an aptitude for painting brocade gowns, or bits of armour (with 
figures inside them), or trees and cattle, or gondolas and buildings, 
or what not ; an instinct for the picturesque, which exhibits itself 
in his works, and outwardly on his person ; beyond this, a gentle 
creature, loving his friends, his cups, feasts, merrymakings, and all 
good things. The kindest folks alive I have found among those 
scowling whiskerandoes. They open oysters with their yataghans, 
toast muffins on their rapiers, and fill their Venice glasses with 
half-and-half. If they have money in their lean purses, be sure 
they have a friend to share it. What innocent gaiety, what jovial 
suppers on threadbare cloths, and wonderful songs after ; what 
pathos, merriment, humour does not a man enjoy who frequents 
their company ! Mr. Clive Newcome, who has long since shaved 
his beard, who has become a family man, and has seen the world in 
a thousand different phases, avers that his life as an art-student at 
home and abroad was the pleasantest part of his whole existence. 
It may not be more amusing in the telling than the chronicle of a 
feast, or the accurate report of two lovers’ conversation ; but the 
biographer, having brought his hero to this period of his life, is 
bound to relate it, before passing to other occurrences which are to 
be narrated in their turn. 

We may be sure the boy had many conversations with his 
affectionate guardian as to the profession which he should follow. 
As regarded mathematical and classical learning, the elder New- 
come was forced to admit that, out of every hundred boys, there 
were fifty as clever as his own, and at least fifty more industrious ; 
the army in time of peace Colonel Newcome thought a bad 
trade for a young fellow so fond of ease and pleasure as his 
son : his delight in the pencil was manifest to alL Were not 
his school-books full of caricatures of the masters? Whilst his 
tutor, Grindley, was lecturing him, did he not draw Grindley 
instinctively under his very nose 1 A painter Clive was determined 
to be, and nothing else ; and Clive, being then some sixteen years 
of age, began to study the art, en regie , under the eminent Mr. 
Gandish, of Soho. 

It was that well-known portrait-painter, Andrew Smee, Esquire, 
R.A., who recommended Gandish to Colonel Newcome, one day 
when the two gentlemen met at dinner at Lady Ann Newcome’s 
table. Mr. Smee happened to examine some of Clive’s drawings, 
which the young fellow had executed for his cousins. Clive found 
no better amusement than in making pictures for them, and would 


THE NEWCOMES 


173 


cheerfully pass evening after evening in that diversion. He had 
made a thousand sketches of Ethel before a year was over ; a year, 
every day of which seemed to increase the attractions of the fair 
young creature, develop her nymph-like form, and give her figure 
fresh graces. Also, of course, Clive drew Alfred and the nursery in 
general, Aunt Ann and the Blenheim spaniels, and Mr. Kuhn and 
his earrings, the majestic John Jbringing in the coalscuttle, and all 
persons or objects in that establishment with which he was familiar. 
“What a genius the lad has!” the complimentary Mr. Smee averred ; 
“ what a force and individuality there is in all his drawings ! Look 
at his horses ! capital, by Jove, capital ! and Alfred on his pony, 
and Miss Ethel in her Spanish hat, with her hair flowing in the wind ! 
I must take this sketch, I positively must now, and show it to 
Landseer.” And the courtly artist daintily enveloped the drawing 
in a sheet of paper, put it away in his hat, and vowed subsequently 
that the great painter had been delighted with the young man’s 
performance. Smee was not only charmed with Clive’s skill as an 
artist, but thought his head would be an admirable one to paint. 
Such a rich complexion, such fine turns in his hair ! such eyes ! to 
see real blue eyes was so rare nowadays ! And the Colonel, too, if the 
Colonel would but give him a few sittings, the grey uniform of the 
Bengal Cavalry, the silver lace, the little bit of red riband just to 
warm up the picture ! it was seldom, Mr. Smee declared, that an 
artist could get such an opportunity for colour. With our hideous 
vermilion uniforms there was no chance of doing anything ; Rubens 
himself could scarcely manage scarlet. Look at the horseman in 
Cuyp’s famous picture at the Louvre : the red was a positive blot 
upon the whole picture. There was nothing like French grey and 
silver ! All which did not prevent Mr. Smee from painting Sir 
Brian in a flaring deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, and entreating all 
military men whom he met to sit to him in scarlet. Clive New come 
the Academician succeeded in painting of course for mere friendship’s 
sake, and because he liked the subject, though he could not refuse 
the cheque which Colonel Newcome sent him for the frame and 
picture ; but no cajoleries could induce the old campaigner to sit to 
any artist save one. He said he should be ashamed to pay fifty 
guineas for the likeness of his homely face ; he jocularly proposed to 
James Binnie to have his head put on the canvas, and Mr. Smee 
enthusiastically caught at the idea; but honest James winked his 
droll eyes, saying his was a beauty that did not want any paint ; 
and when Mr. Smee took his leave after dinner in Fitzroy Square, 
where this conversation was held, James Binnie hinted that the 
Academician was no better than an old humbug, in which surmise 
he was probably not altogether incorrect. Certain young men who 


174 


THE NEWCOMES 


frequented the kind Colonel’s house were also somewhat of this 
opinion ; and made endless jokes at the painter’s expense. Smee 
plastered his sitters with adulation as methodically as he covered 
his canvas. He waylaid gentlemen at dinner; he inveigled un- 
suspecting folks into his studio, and had their heads off their 
shoulders before they were aware. One day, on our way from the 
Temple, through Howland Street, to the Colonel’s house, we beheld 
Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, in full uniform, rushing from 
Smee’s door to his brougham. The coachman was absent refreshing 
himself at a neighbouring tap : the little street-boys cheered and 
hurraed Sir Thomas, as, arrayed in gold and scarlet, he sat in his 
chariot. He blushed purple when he beheld us. Ho artist would 
have dared to imitate those purple tones : he was one of the 
numerous victims of Mr. Smee. 

One day then, day to be noted with a white stone, Colonel 
Newcome, with his son and Mr. Smee, R.A., walked from the 
Colonel’s house to Gandish’s, which was not far removed thence ; 
and young Clive, who was a perfect mimic, described to his friends, 
and illustrated, as was his wont, by diagrams, the interview which 
he had with that professor. “ By Jove, you must see Gandish, 
Pen ! ” cries Clive : “ Gandish is worth the whole world. Come 
and be an art-student. You’ll find such jolly fellows there ! 
Gandish calls it hart-student, and says, ‘ Hars est celare Hartem ’ — 
by Jove he does ! He treated us to a little Latin, as he brought 
out a cake and a bottle of wine, you know.” 

“ The governor was splendid, sir. He wore gloves : you know 
he only puts them on on parade days : and turned out for the occa- 
sion spick and span. He ought to be a general officer. He looks 
like a field-marshal — don’t he ? You should have seen him bowing 
to Mrs. Gandish and the Miss Gandishes, dressed all in their best, 
round the cake-tray ! He takes his glass of wine, and sweeps them 
all round with a bow. ‘ I hope, young ladies,’ says he, ‘ you don’t 
often go to the students’ room. I’m afraid the young gentlemen 
would leave off looking at the statues if you came in.’ And so they 
would : for you never saw such Guys ; but the dear old boy fancies 
every woman is a beauty. 

“ ‘ Mr. Smee, you are looking at my picture of “ Boadishia ? ” ’ 
says Gandish. Wouldn’t he have caught it for his quantities at 
Grey Friars, that’s all ? 

“ ‘ Yes — ah — yes,’ says Mr. Smee, putting his hand over his 
eyes, and standing before it, looking steady, you know, as if he was 
going to see whereabouts he should hit ‘ Boadishia.’ 

“ * It was painted when you were a young man, four years 
before you were an Associate, Smee. Had some success in its time. 


THE NEW COMES 


175 


and there’s good pints about that pictur’,’ Gandish goes on. ‘ But 
I never could get my price for it ; and here it hangs in my own 
room. Tgh art won’t do in this country, Colonel — it’s a melancholy 
fact.’ 

“ * High art ! I should think it is high art ! ’ whispers old 
Smee ; ‘ fourteen feet high, at least ! ’ And then out loud he says : 

‘ The picture has very fine points in it, Gandish, as you say. Fore- 
shortening of that arm, capital ! That red drapery carried off into 
the right of the picture very skilfully managed ! ’ 

“ ‘ It’s not like portrait-painting, Smee — ’igh art,’ says Gandish. 

‘ The models of the hancient Britons in that pictur’ alone cost me 
thirty pound — when I was a struggling man, and had just married 
my Betsy here. You reckonise Boadishia, Colonel, with the Roman 
’elinet, cuirass, and javeling of the period — all studied from the 
hantique, sir, the glorious hantique.’ 

“ ‘ All but Boadicea,’ says father. ‘ She remains always young.’ 
And he began to speak the lines out of Cowper, he did — waving his 
stick like an old trump — and famous they are,” cries the lad — 

‘ * ' When the British warrior queen, 

Bleeding from the Roman rods ’ — 

Jolly verses ! Haven’t I translated them into Alcaics ! ” says Clive, 
with a merry laugh, and resumes his history. 

“ ‘ Oh, I must have those verses in my album,’ cries one of the 
young ladies. ‘Did you compose them, Colonel Newcome 1 ?’ But 
Gandish, you see, is never thinking about any works but his own, 
and goes on, ‘Study of my eldest daughter, exhibited 1816.’ 

“‘No, pa, not ’16,’ cries Miss Gandish. She don’t look like 
a chicken, I can tell you. 

“ ‘ Admired,’ Gandish goes on, never heeding her. — ‘ I can show 
you what the papers said of it at the time — Morning Chronicle 
and Examiner — spoke most ’ighly of it. My son as an infant 
’Ercules, stranglin’ the serpent over the piano. Fust conception of 
my picture of “ Non Hangli sed Hangeli.” ’ 

“ ‘ For which I can guess who were the angels that sat,’ says 
father. Upon my word, that old governor ! He is a little too 
strong. But Mr. Gandish listened no more to him than to Mr. 
Smee, and went on, buttering himself all over, as I have read the 
Hottentots do. ‘ Myself at thirty-three years of age ! ’ says he, 
pointing to a portrait of a gentleman in leather breeches and 
mahogany boots ; ‘ I could have been a portrait-painter, Mr. 
Smee.’ 

“ ‘ Indeed it was lucky for some of us you devoted yourself 
to high art, Gandish,’ Mr. Smee says, and sips the wine and 


176 THE NEWCOMES 

puts it down again, making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, 
you see. 

“ ‘ Two girls/ continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. ‘ Hidea 
for “ Babes in the Wood.” “View of Pees turn,” taken on the spot 
by myself, when travelling with the late lamented Earl of Kew. 
“ Beauty, Valour, Commerce, and Liberty, condoling with Britannia 
on the death of Admiral Viscount Nelson,” — allegorical piece drawn 
at a very early age after Trafalgar. Mr. Fuseli saw that piece, sir, 
when I was a student of the Academy, and said to me, “ Young 
man, stick to the antique. There’s nothing like it.” Those were 
’is very words. If you do me the favour to walk into the Hatrium, 
you’ll remark my great pictures also from English ’ist’ry. An 
English ’istorical painter, sir, should be employed chiefly in English 
’ist’ry. That’s what I would have done. Why ain’t there temples 
for us, where the people might read their ’ist’ry at a glance, and 
without knowing how to read ? Why is my “ Alfred ” ’anging up 
in this ’all 1 Because there is no patronage for a man who devotes 
himself to ’igh art. You know the anecdote, Colonel 1 King 
Alfred, flying from the Danes, took refuge in a neat’erd’s ’ut. The 
rustic’s wife told him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovering set 
down to his ignoble task, and forgetting it in the cares of state, let 
the cake burn, on which the woman struck him. The moment 
chose is when she is lifting her ’and to deliver the blow. The king 
receives it with majesty mingled with meekness. In the back- 
ground the door of the ’ut is open, letting in the royal officers to 
announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight breaks in at the 
aperture, signifying the dawning of ’Ope. That story, sir, which I 
found in my researches in ’ist’ry, has since become so popular, sir, 
that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds ! I, who dis- 
covered the legend, have my picture — here ! ’ 

“ ‘ Now, Colonel,’ says the showman, ‘ let me — let me lead you 
through the statue gallery. “Apollo,” you see. The “Venus 
Hanadyomene,” the glorious Venus of the Louvre, which I saw in 
1814, Colonel, in its glory — the “Laocoon” — my friend Gibson’s 
“ Nymph,” you see, is the only figure I admit among the antiques. 
Now up this stair to the students’ room, where I trust my young 
friend, Mr. Newcome, will labour assidiously. Ars longa est, Mr. 
Newcome. Vita ’ 

“ I trembled,” Clive said, “ lest my father should introduce a 
certain favourite quotation, beginning ‘ ingenuas didicisse ’ — but he 
refrained, and we went into the room, where a score of students 
were assembled, who all looked away from their drawing-boards as 
we entered. 

“Here will be your place, Mr. Newcome,’ says the Professor, 



gandish’s. 









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177 


‘ and here that of your young friend — what did you say was his 
name ? ’ I told him Ridley, for my dear old governor has promised 
to pay for J. J. too, you know. ‘ Mr. Chivers is the senior pupil 
and custos of the room in the absence of my son. Mr. Chivers, 
Mr. Newcome; gentlemen, Mr. Newcome, a new pupil. My son, 
Charles Gandish, Mr. Newcome. Assiduity, gentlemen, assiduity. 
Ars longa. Vita brevis , et linea recta brevissima est. This way, 
Colonel, down these steps, across the courtyard, to my own studio. 
There, gentlemen,’ — and pulling aside a curtain, Gandish says — 
‘ There ! ’ ” 

“ And what was the masterpiece behind it 1 ” we ask of Clive, 
after we have done laughing at his imitation. 

“ Hand round the hat, J. J. ! ” cries Clive. “ Now, ladies and 
gentlemen, pay your money. Now walk in, for the performance is 
‘just a-going to begin.’” Nor would the rogue ever tell us what 
Gandish’s curtained picture was. 

Not a successful painter, Mr. Gandish was an excellent master, 
and regarding all artists, save one, perhaps a good critic. Clive and 
his friend J. J. came soon after, and commenced their studies under 
him. The one took his humble seat at the drawing-board, a poor 
mean-looking lad, with worn clothes, downcast features, and a figure 
almost deformed; the other adorned by good health, good looks, 
and the best of tailors — ushered into the studio with his father 
and Mr. Smee as his aides-de-camp on his entry, and previously 
announced there with all the eloquence of honest Gandish. “ I bet 
he’s ’ad cake and wine,” says one youthful student, of an epicurean 
and satirical turn. “ I bet he might have it every day if he liked.” 
In fact, Gandish was always handing him sweetmeats of compliments 
and cordials of approbation. He had coat-sleeves with silk linings — 
he had studs in his shirt. How different was the texture and colour 
of that garment to the sleeves Bob Grimes displayed when he took 
his coat off to put on his working-jacket ! Horses used actually to 
come for him to Gandish’s door (which was situated in a certain 
lofty street in Soho). The Misses G. would smile at him from the 
parlour window as he mounted and rode splendidly off, and those 
opposition beauties, the Misses Levison, daughters of the professor 
of dancing over the way, seldom failed to greet the young gentleman 
with an admiring ogle from their great black eyes. Master Clive 
was pronounced an “ out-and-outer,” a “ swell and no mistake,” 
and complimented, with scarce one dissentient voice, by the simple 
academy at Gandish’s. Besides, he drew very well, — there could 
be no doubt about that. Caricatures of the students, of course, 
were passing constantly among them, and in revenge for one which 
a huge red-haired Scotch student, Mr. Sandy M‘Coilop, had made 

8 M 


178 


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of John James, Clive perpetrated a picture of Sandy which set 
the whole room in a roar ; and when the Caledonian giant uttered 
satirical remarks against the assembled company, averring that 
they were a parcel of sneaks, a set of lickspittles, and using 
epithets still more vulgar, Clive slipped off his fine silk-sleeved 
coat in an instant, invited Mr. M‘Collop into the back-yard, 
instructed him in a science which the lad himself had acquired at 
Grey Friars, and administered two black eyes to Sandy, which 
prevented the young artist from seeing for some days after the 
head of the “ Laocoon ” which he was copying. The Scotchman’s 
superior weight and age might have given the combat a different 
conclusion, had it endured long after Clive’s brilliant opening attack 
with his right and left; but Professor Gandish came out of his 
painting-room at the sound of battle, and could scarcely credit his 
own eyes when he saw those of poor M‘Collop so darkened. To 
do the Scotchman justice, he bore Clive no rancour. They became 
friends there, and afterwards at Rome, whither they subsequently 
went to pursue their studies. The fame of Mr. M‘Collop as an 
artist has long since been established. His pictures of “Lord 
Lovat in Prison,” and “ Hogarth painting him,” of the “ Blowing- 
up of the Kirk of Field ” (painted for M‘Collop of M‘Collop), of 
the “ Torture of the Covenanters,” the “ Murder of the Regent,” 
the “ Murder of Rizzio,” and other historical pieces, all of course 
from Scotch history, have established his reputation in South as 
well as in North Britain. No one would suppose, from the gloomy 
character of his works, that Sandy M‘Collop is one of the most 
jovial souls alive. Within six months after their little difference, 
Clive and he were the greatest of friends, and it was by the former’s 
suggestion that Mr. James Binnie gave Sandy his first commission, 
who selected the cheerful subject of “The Young Duke of Rothesay 
starving in Prison.” 

During this period Mr. Clive assumed the toga virilis, and 
beheld with inexpressible satisfaction the first growth of those 
mustachios which have since given him such a marked appearance. 
Being at Gandish’s, and so near the dancing academy, what must 
he do but take lessons in the Terpsichorean art too? — making 
himself as popular with the dancing folks as with the drawing 
folks, and the jolly king of his company everywhere. He gave 
entertainments to his fellow-students in the upper chambers in 
Fitzroy Square, which were devoted to his use, inviting his father 
and Mr. Binnie to those parties now and then. And songs were 
sung, and pipes were smoked, and many a pleasant supper eaten. 
There was no stint : but no excess. No young man was ever seen 
to quit those apartments the worse, as it is called, for liquor. Fred 


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179 

Bayham’s uncle, the bishop, could not be more decorous than F. B. 
as he left the Colonel’s house, for the Colonel made that one of the 
conditions of his son’s hospitality, that nothing like intoxication 
should ensue from it. The good gentleman did not frequent the 
parties of the juniors. He saw that his presence rather silenced 
the young men ; and left them to themselves, confiding in Clive’s 
parole, and went away to play his rubber of whist at the Club. 
And many a time he heard the young fellow’s steps tramping by 
his bedchamber door, as he lay wakeful within, happy to think 
his son was happy. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

NE IV COMPANIONS 


C LIVE used to give droll accounts of the young disciples at 
Gandish’s, who were of various ages and conditions, and in 
whose company the young fellow took his place with that 
good temper and gaiety which have seldom deserted him in life, and 
have put him at ease wherever his fate has led him. He is, in 
truth, as much at home in a fine drawing-room as in a public-house 
parlour ; and can talk as pleasantly to the polite mistress of the 
mansion as to the jolly landlady dispensing her drinks from her 
bar. Not one of the Gandishites but was after a while well inclined 
to the young fellow : from Mr. Chivers, the senior pupil, down to 
the little imp Harry Hooker, who knew as much mischief at twelve 
years old, and could draw as cleverly, as many a student of five- 
and-twenty ; and Bob Trotter, the diminutive fag of the studio, 
who ran on all the young men’s errands, and fetched them in apples, 
oranges, and walnuts. Clive opened his eyes with wonder when he 
first beheld these simple feasts, and the pleasure with which some 
of the young men partook of them. They were addicted to polonies ; 
they did not disguise their love for Banbury cakes ; they made bets 
in ginger-beer, and gave and took the odds in that frothing liquor. 
There was a young Hebrew amongst the pupils, upon whom his 
brother students used playfully to press ham sandwiches, pork 
sausages, and the like. This young man (who has risen to great 
wealth subsequently, and was bankrupt only three months since) 
actually bought cocoa-nuts, and sold them at a profit amongst the 
lads. His pockets were never without pencil-cases, French chalk, 
garnet brooches, for which he was willing to bargain. He behaved 
very rudely to Gandish, who seemed to be afraid before him. It 
was whispered that the Professor was not altogether easy in his 
circumstances, and that the elder Moss had some mysterious hold 
over him. Honeyman and Bayham, who once came to see Clive at 
the studio, seemed each disturbed at beholding young Moss seated 
there (making a copy of the Marsyas). “ Pa knows both those 
gents,” he informed Clive afterwards, with a wicked twinkle of 
his oriental eyes. “ Step in, Mr. Newcome, any day you are 


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181 


passing down Wardour Street, and see if you don’t want anything 
in our way.” (He pronounced the words in his own way, saying: 
“ Step id, Bister Doocob, ady day idto Vordor Street,” &c.) This 
young gentleman could get tickets for almost all the theatres, which 
he gave or sold, and gave splendid accounts at Gandish’s of the 
brilliant masquerades. Clive was greatly diverted at beholding 
Mr. Moss at one of these entertainments, dressed in a scarlet coat 
and top-boots, and calling out, “ Yoicks ! Hark forward!” fitfully 
to another orientalist, his younger brother, attired like a midship- 
man. Once Clive bought a half-dozen of theatre tickets from Mr. 
Moss, which he distributed to the young fellows of the studio. 
But when this nice young man tried further to tempt him on the 
next day, “ Mr. Moss,” Clive said to him with much dignity, “ I 
am very much obliged to you for your offer, but when I go to the 
play, I prefer paying at the doors.” 

Mr. Chi vers used to sit in one corner of the room, occupied over 
a lithographic stone. He was an uncouth and peevish young man ; 
for ever finding fault with the younger pupils, whose butt he was. 
Next in rank and age was M‘Collop, before named : and these two 
were at first more than usually harsh and captious with Clive, 
whose prosperity offended them, and whose dandified manners, free- 
and-easy ways, and evident influence over the younger scholars, gave 
umbrage to these elderly apprentices. Clive at first returned Mr. 
Chivers war for war, controlment for controlment ; but when he 
found Chivers was the son of a helpless widow ; that he maintained 
her by his lithographic vignettes for the music-sellers, and by the 
scanty remuneration of some lessons which he gave at a school at 
Highgate ; — when Clive saw, or fancied he saw, the lonely senior 
eyeing with hungry eyes the luncheons of cheese and bread, and 
sweets tuff, w T hich the young lads of the studio enjoyed, I promise 
you Mr. Clive’s wrath against Chivers was speedily turned into 
compassion and kindness, and he sought, and no doubt found means 
of feeding Chivers without offending his testy independence. 

Nigh to Gandish’s was, and perhaps is, another establishment 
for teaching the art of design — Barker’s, which had the additional 
dignity of a life and costume academy, frequented by a class of 
students more advanced than those of Gandish’s. Between these 
and the Barkerites there was a constant rivalry and emulation, in 
and out of doors. Gandish sent more pupils to the Royal Academy ; 
Gandish had brought up three medallists ; and the last R.A. student 
sent to Rome was a Gandishite. Barker, on the contrary, scorned 
and loathed Trafalgar Square, and laughed at its art. Barker 
exhibited in Pall Mall and Suffolk Street : he laughed at old 
Gandish and his pictures, made mincemeat of his “Non Angli, sed 


182 


THE NEWCOMES 


Angeli,” and tore “ King Alfred ” and his muffins to pieces. The 
young men of the respective schools used to meet at Lundy’s coffee- 
house and billiard-room, and smoke there, and do battle. Before 
Clive and his friend J. J. came to Gandish’s, the Barkerites were 
having the best of that constant match which the two academies 
were playing. Fred Bayham, who knew every coffee-house in town, 
and whose initials were scored on a thousand tavern doors, was for 
a while a constant visitor at Lundy’s, played pool with the young 
men, and did not disdain to dip his beard into their porter pots, 
when invited to partake of their drink ; treated them handsomely 
when he was in cash himself ; and was an honorary member of 
Barker’s academy. Nay, when the guardsman was not forthcoming, 
who was standing for one of Barker’s heroic pictures, Bayham bared 
his immense arms and brawny shoulders, and stood as Prince 
Edward, with Philippa sucking the poisoned wound. He would 
take his friends up to the picture in the Exhibition, and proudly 
point to it. “Look at that biceps, sir, and now look at this — 
that’s Barker’s masterpiece, sir, and that’s the muscle of F. B., sir.” 
In no company was F. B. greater than in the society of the artists, 
in whose smoky haunts and airy parlours he might often be found. 
It was from F. B. that Clive heard of Mr. Chivers’s struggles and 
honest industry. A great deal of shrewd advice could F. B. give 
on occasion, and many a kind action and gentle office of charity was 
this jolly outlaw known to do and cause to be done. His advice to 
Clive was most edifying at this time of our young gentleman’s life, 
and he owns that he was kept from much mischief by this queer 
counsellor. 

A few months after Clive and J. J. had entered at Gandish’s, 
that academy began to hold its own against its rival. The silent 
young disciple was pronounced to be a genius. His copies were 
beautiful in delicacy and finish. His designs were exquisite for 
grace and richness of fancy. Mr. Gandish took to himself the 
credit for J. J.’s genius ; Clive ever and fondly acknowledged the 
benefit he got from his friend’s taste, and bright enthusiasm, and 
sure skill. As for Clive, if he was successful in the academy, he 
was doubly victorious out of it. His person was handsome, his 
courage high, his gaiety and frankness delightful and winning. 
His money was plenty, and he spent it like a young king. He 
could speedily beat all the club at Lundy’s at billiards, and give 
points to the redoubted F. B. himself. He sang a famous song 
at their jolly supper-parties : and J. J. had no greater delight than 
to listen to his fresh voice, and watch the young conqueror at the 
billiard-table, where the balls seemed to obey him. 

Clive was not the most docile of Mr. Gandish’s pupils. If he 


x THE NEWCOMES 


183 


had not come to the studio on horseback, several of the young 
students averred, Gandish would not always have been praising 
him and quoting him as that professor certainly did. It must be 
confessed that the young ladies read the history of Clive’s uncle 
in the “ Book of Baronets,” and that Gandish junior, probably 
with an eye to business, made a design of a picture, in which, 
according to that veracious volume, one of the Newcomes was 
represented as going cheerfully to the stake at Smithfield, sur- 
rounded by some very ill-favoured Dominicans, whose arguments 
did not appear to make the least impression upon the martyr of 
the Newcome family. Sandy M‘Collop devised a counter picture, 
wherein the barber-surgeon of King Edward the Confessor was 
drawn, operating upon the beard of that monarch. To which piece 
of satire Clive gallantly replied by a design, representing Sawney 
Bean M‘Collop, chief of the clan of that name, descending from his 
mountains into Edinburgh, and his astonishment at beholding a 
pair of breeches for the first time. These playful jokes passed con- 
stantly amongst the young men of Gandish’s studio. There was 
no one there who was not caricatured in one way or another. He 
whose eyes looked not very straight w T as depicted with a most 
awful squint. The youth whom nature had endowed with a some- 
what lengthy nose was drawn by the caricaturists with a prodigious 
proboscis. Little Bobby Moss, the young Hebrew artist from 
Wardour Street, was delineated with three hats and an old-clothes 
bag. Nor were poor J. J.’s round shoulders spared, until Clive 
indignantly remonstrated at the hideous hunchback pictures which 
the boys made of his friend, and vowed it was a shame to make 
jokes at such a deformity. 

Our friend, if the truth must be told regarding him, though one 
of the most frank, generous, and kind-hearted persons, is of a nature 
somewhat haughty and imperious, and very likely the course of 
life which he now led, and the society which he was compelled to 
keep, served to increase some original defects in his character, and 
to fortify a certain disposition to think well of himself, with which 
his enemies not unjustly reproach him. He has been known very 
pathetically to lament that he was withdrawn from school too 
early, where a couple of years’ further course of thrashings from 
his tyrant, Old Hodge, he avers, would have done him good. He 
laments that he was not sent to college, where, if a young man 
receives no other discipline, at least he acquires that of meeting 
with his equals in society, and of assuredly finding his betters ; 
whereas in poor Mr. Gandish’s studio of art, our young gentleman 
scarcely found a comrade that was not in one way or other his 
flatterer, his inferior, his honest or dishonest admirer. The influence 


184 


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of his family’s rank and wealth acted more or less on all those 
simple folks, who would run on his errands and vied with each 
other in winning the young nabob’s favour. His very goodness 
of heart rendered him a more easy prey to their flattery, and his 
kind and jovial disposition led him into company from which he 
had been much better away. I am afraid that artful young Moss, 
whose parents dealt in pictures, furniture, gimcracks, and jewellery, 
victimised Clive sadly with rings and chains, shirt-studs and 
flaming shirt-pins, and such vanities, which the poor young rogue 
locked up in his desk generally, only venturing to wear them when 
he was out of his father’s sight or of Mr. Binnie’s, whose shrewd 
eyes watched him very keenly. 

Mr. Clive used to leave home every day shortly after noon, 
when he was supposed to betake himself to Gandish’s studio. But 
was the young gentleman always at the drawing-board copying 
from the antique when his father supposed him to be so devotedly 
engaged ? I fear his place was sometimes vacant. His friend J. J. 
worked every day and all day. Many a time the steady little 
student remarked his patron’s absence, and, no doubt, gently remon- 
strated with him, but when Clive did come to his work he executed 
it with remarkable skill and rapidity; and Ridley was too fond 
of him to say a word at home regarding the shortcomings of the 
youthful scapegrace. Candid readers may sometimes have heard 
their friend Jones’s mother lament that her darling was working 
too hard at college ; or Harry’s sisters express their anxiety lest his 
too rigorous attendance in chambers (after which he will persist in 
sitting up all night reading those dreary law books which cost such 
an immense sum of money) should undermine dear Henry’s health ; 
and to such acute persons a word is sufficient to indicate young Mr. 
Clive Newcome’s proceedings. Meanwhile his father, who knew no 
more of the world than Harry’s simple sisters or Jones’s fond mother, 
never doubted that all Clive’s doings were right, and that his boy 
was the best of boys. 

“ If that young man goes on as charmingly as he has begun,” 
Clive’s cousin, Barnes Newcome, said of his kinsman, “he will be a 
paragon. I saw him last night at Yauxhall in company with young 
Moss, whose father does bills and keeps the bric-a-brac shop in 
Wardour Street. Two or three other gentlemen, probably young 
old-clothes men, who had concluded for the day the labours of the 
bag, joined Mr. Newcome and his friend, and they partook of rack- 
punch in an arbour. He is a delightful youth, Cousin Clive, and I 
feel sure he is about to be an honour to our family.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE COLONEL AT HOME 


O UR good Colonel’s house had received a coat of paint, which, 
like Madame Latour’s rouge in her latter days, only served 
to make her careworn face look more ghastly. The kitchens 
were gloomy. The stables were gloomy. Great black passages; 
cracked conservatory; dilapidated bathroom, with melancholy waters 
moaning and fizzing from the cistern ; the great large blank stone 
staircase — were all so many melancholy features in the general 
countenance of the house; but the Colonel thought it perfectly 
cheerful and pleasant, and furnished it in his rough and ready way. 
One day came a cartload of chairs; the next a waggon full of fenders, 
fire-irons, and glass, and crockery — a quantity of supplies, in a word, 
he poured into the place. There were yellow curtains in the back 
drawing-room, and green curtains in the front. The carpet was an 
immense bargain, bought dirt cheap, sir, at a sale in Euston Square. 
He was against the purchase of a carpet for the stairs. What was 
the good of it 'l What did men want with stair-carpets ? His own 
apartment contained a wonderful assortment of lumber. Shelves 
which he nailed himself, old Indian garments, camphor trunks. 
What did he want with gewgaws ? anything was good enough for 
an old soldier. But the spare bedroom was endowed with all sorts 
of splendour : a bed as big as a general’s tent, a cheval glass — 
whereas the Colonel shaved in a little cracked mirror, which cost 
him no more than King Stephen’s breeches — and a handsome new 
carpet ; while the boards of the Colonel’s bedchamber were as bare 
— as bare as old Miss Scragg’s shoulders, which would be so much 
more comfortable were they covered up. Mr. Binnie’s bedchamber 
was neat, snug, and appropriate. And Clive had a study and bed- 
room at the top of the house, which he was allowed to furnish 
entirely according to his own taste. How he and Ridley revelled in 
Wardour Street! What delightful coloured prints of hunting, racing, 
and beautiful ladies did they not purchase, mount with their own 
hands, cut out for screens, frame and glaze, and hang up on the walls. 
When the rooms were ready they gave a party, inviting the Colonel 
and Mr. Binnie by note of hand, two gentlemen from Lamb Court, 


186 


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Temple, Mr. Honeyman, and Fred Bayham. We must have Fred 
Bayham. Fred Bayham frankly asked, “Is Mr. Sherrick, with 
whom you have become rather intimate lately — and mind you I say 
nothing, but I recommend strangers in London to be cautious about 
their friends — is Mr. Sherrick coming to you, young un, because if 
he is, F. B. must respectfully decline 'l ” 

Mr. Sherrick was not invited, and accordingly F. B. came. 
But Sherrick was invited on other days, and a very queer society 
did our honest Colonel gather together in that queer house, so 
dreary, so dingy, so comfortless, so pleasant. He, who was one of 
the most hospitable men alive, loved to have his friends around 
him ; and it must be confessed that the evening parties now occa- 
sionally given in Fitzroy Square were of the oddest assemblage of 
people. The correct East India gentlemen from Hanover Square ; 
the artists, Clive’s friends, gentlemen of all ages with all sorts of 
beards, in every variety of costume. Now and again a stray school- 
fellow from Grey Friars, who stared, as well he might, at the com- 
pany in which he found himself. Sometimes a few ladies were 
brought to these entertainments. The immense politeness of the 
good host compensated some of them for the strangeness of his com- 
pany. They had never seen such odd-looking hairy men as those 
young artists, nor such wonderful women as Colonel Newcome 
assembled together. He was good to all old maids and poor 
widows. Retired captains with large families of daughters found 
in him their best friend. He sent carriages to fetch them, and 
bring them back, from the suburbs where they dwelt. Gandish, 
Mrs. Gandish, and the four Misses Gandish in scarlet robes, were 
constant attendants at the Colonel’s soirees. “ I delight, sir, in the 
’ospitality of my distinguished military friend,” Mr. Gandish would 
say. “ The harmy has always been my passion. I served in the 
Soho Volunteers three years myself, till the conclusion of the war, 
sir, till the conclusion of the war.” 

It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Bayham engaged in 
the waltz or the quadrille with some of the elderly houris at the 
Colonel’s parties. F. B., like a good-natured F. B. as he was, 
always chose the plainest women as partners, and entertained them 
with profound compliments and sumptuous conversation. The 
Colonel likewise danced quadrilles with the utmost gravity. Waltz- 
ing had been invented long since his time ; but he practised quad- 
rilles when they first came in, about 1817, in Calcutta. To see 
him leading up a little old maid, and bowing to her when the dance 
was ended, and performing Cavalier seul with stately simplicity, 
was a sight indeed to remember. If Clive Newcome had not such 
a fine sense of humour, he would have blushed for his father’s 


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187 


simplicity. As it was, the elder’s guileless goodness and childlike 
trustfulness endeared him immensely to his son. “Look at the 
old boy, Pendennis,” he would say, “ look at him leading up that 
old Miss Tidswell to the piano. Doesn’t he do it like an old 
Duke ? I lay a wager she thinks she is going to be my mother-in- 
law ; all the women are in love with him, young and old. ‘ Should 
he upbraid.’ There she goes. ‘ I’ll own that he’ll prevail, and 
sing as sweetly as a nigh-tin-gale ! ’ Oh, you old warbler. Look 
at father’s old head bobbing up and down ! Wouldn’t he do for 
Sir Roger de Coverley? How do you do, Uncle Charles? — I say, 
M‘Collop, how gets on the Duke of What-d’ye-call-em starving in the 
castle ? Gandish says it’s very good.” The lad retires to a group of 
artists. Mr. Honeyman comes up with a faint smile playing on his 
features, like moonlight on the fagade of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel. 

“ These parties are the most singular I have ever seen,” whispers 
Honeyman. “In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck 
with the immensity of London, and with the sense of one’s own 
insignificance. Without, I trust, departing from my clerical char- 
acter, nay, from my very avocation as Incumbent of a London 
Chapel, I have seen a good deal of the world, and here is an 
assemblage no doubt of most respectable persons, on scarce one of 
whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where does my good 
brother find such characters ? ” 

“ That,” says Mr. Honeyman’s interlocutor, “ is the celebrated, 
though neglected artist, Professor Gandish, whom nothing but 
jealousy has kept out of the Royal Academy. Surely you have 
heard of the great Gandish ? ” 

“ Indeed I am ashamed to confess my ignorance, but a clergy- 
man, busy with his duties, knows little, perhaps too little, of the 
fine arts.” 

“ Gandish, sir, is one of the greatest geniuses on whom our un- 
grateful country ever trampled; he exhibited his first celebrated 
picture of ‘Alfred in the Neatherd’s Hut’ (he says he is the first 
who ever touched that subject) in 1804; but Lord Nelson’s death, 
and victory of Trafalgar, occupied the public attention at that time, 
and Gandish’s work went unnoticed. In the year 1816 he painted 
his great work of ‘ Boadicea.’ You see her before you. That lady 
in yellow, with a light front and a turban. Boadicea became Mrs. 
Gandish in that year. So late as ’27, he brought before the world 
his ‘Non Angli, sed Angeli.’ Two of the angels are yonder in sea- 
green dresses — the Misses Gandish. The youth in Berlin gloves 
was the little male angelus of that piece.” 

“ How came you to know all this, you strange man ? ” says Mr. 
Honeyman. 


188 


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“ Simply because Gandish has told me twenty times. He tells 
the story to everybody, every time he sees them. He told it to- 
day at dinner. Boadicea and the angels came afterwards.” 

“ Satire ! satire ! Mr. Pendennis,” says the divine, holding up 
a reproving finger of lavender kid, “ beware of a wicked wit ! — But 
when a man has that tendency, I know how difficult it is to restrain. 
My dear Colonel, good evening ! You have a great reception 
to-night. That gentleman’s bass voice is very fine ; Mr. Pendennis 
and I were admiring it. The ‘Wolf’ is a song admirably adapted 
to show its capabilities.” 

Mr. Gandish’s autobiography had occupied the whole time after 
the retirement of the ladies from Colonel Newcome’s dinner-table. 
Mr. Hobson Newcome had been asleep during the performance; 
Sir Curry Baughton, and one or two of the Colonel’s professional 
and military guests, silent and puzzled; honest Mr. Binnie, with 
his shrewd good-humoured face, sipping his claret as usual, and 
delivering a sly joke now and again to the gentlemen at his end 
of the table. Mrs. Newcome had sat by him in sulky dignity ; was 
it that Lady Baughton’s diamonds offended her 1 ? — her Ladyship 
and her daughters being attired in great splendour for a Court ball 
which they were to attend that evening. Was she hurt because 
she was not invited to that Royal Entertainment? As these 
festivities were to take place at an early hour, the ladies bidden 
were obliged to quit the Colonel’s house before the evening party 
commenced, from which Lady Ann declared she was quite vexed 
to be obliged to run away. 

Lady Ann Newcome had been as gracious on this occasion as 
her sister-in-law had been out of humour. Everything pleased her 
in the house. She had no idea that there were such fine houses 
in that quarter of the town. She thought the dinner so very nice ; 
that Mr. Binnie such a good-humoured-looking gentleman; that 
stout gentleman, with his collar turned down like Lord Byron’s, 
so exceedingly clever and full of information. A celebrated artist 
was he ? (courtly Mr. Smee had his own opinion upon that point, 
but did not utter it). All those artists are so eccentric and amusing 
and clever. Before dinner she insisted upon seeing Clive’s den 
with its pictures and casts and pipes. “You horrid young wicked 
creature, have you begun to smoke already?” she asks, as she 
admires his room. She admired everything. Nothing could exceed 
her satisfaction. 

The sisters-in-law kissed on meeting, with that cordiality so 
delightful to witness in sisters who dwell together in unity. It 
was, “ My dear Maria, what an age since I have seen you ! ” “ My 
dear Ann, our occupations are so engrossing, our circles are so 


THE NEWCOMES 


189 

different,” in a languid response from the other. “Sir Brian is 
not coming, I suppose? Now, Colonel,” — she turns in a frisky 
manner towards him, and taps her fan, — “did I not tell you Sir 
Brian would not come ? ” 

“ He is kept at the House of Commons, my dear. Those 
dreadful committees. He was quite vexed at not being able to 
come.” 

“ I know, I know, dear Ann, there are always excuses to gentle- 
men in Parliament, I have received many such. Mr. Shaloony 
and Mr. M‘Sheny, the leaders of our party, often and often dis- 
appoint me. I knew Brian would not come. My husband came 
down from Marble Head on purpose this morning. Nothing would 
have induced us to give up our brother’s party.” 

“ I believe you. I did come down from Marble Head this 
morning, and I was four hours in the hayfield before I came away, 
and in the City till five, and I have been to look at a horse after- 
wards at Tattersall’s, and I am as hungry as a hunter, and as tired 
as a hodman,” says Mr. Newcome, with his hands in his pockets. 
“ How do you do, Mr. Pendennis ? Maria, you remember Mr. 
Pendennis — don’t you ? ” 

“ Perfectly,” replies the languid Maria. Mrs. Gandish, Colonel 
Topham, Major M‘Cracken are announced ; and then, in diamonds, 
feathers, and splendour, Lady Baughton and Miss Baughton, who 
are going to the Queen’s ball, and Sir Curry Baughton, not quite 
in his deputy-lieutenant’s uniform as yet, looking very shy in a 
pair of blue trousers, with a glittering stripe of silver down the 
seams. Clive looks with wonder and delight at these ravishing 
ladies, rustling in fresh brocades, with feathers, diamonds, and every 
magnificence. Aunt Ann has not her court- dress on as yet; and 
Aunt Maria blushes as she beholds the new-comers, having thought 
fit to attire herself in a high dress, with a Quaker-like simplicity, 
and a pair of gloves more than ordinarily dingy. The pretty little 
foot she has, it is true, and sticks it out from habit ; but what is 
Mrs. Newcome’s foot compared with that sweet little chaussure 
which Miss Baughton exhibits and withdraws ? The shiny white 
satin slipper, the pink stocking which ever and anon peeps from the 
rustling folds of her robe, and timidly retires into its covert — that 
foot, light as it is, crushes Mrs Newcome. 

No wonder she winces, and is angry; there are some mis- 
chievous persons who rather like to witness that discomfiture. 
All Mr. Smee’s flatteries that day failed to soothe her. 

What happened to her alone in the drawing-room, when the 
ladies invited to the dinner had departed, and those convoked to 
the soiree began to arrive, — what happened to her or to them I 


190 


THE NEWCOMES 


do not like to think. The Gandishes arrived first : Boadicea and 
the angels. We judged from the fact that young Mr. Gandish 
came blushing in to the dessert. Name after name was announced 
of persons of whom Mrs. Newcome knew nothing. The young and 
the old, the pretty and homely, they were all in their best dresses, 
and no doubt stared at Mrs. Newcome, so obstinately plain in her 
attire. When we came upstairs from dinner, we found her seated 
entirely by herself, tapping her fan at the fireplace. Timid groups 
of persons were round about, waiting for the irruption of the gentle- 
men, until the pleasure should begin. Mr. Newcome, who came 
upstairs yawning, was heard to say to his wife, “Oh, dam, let’s 
cut ! ” And they went downstairs, and waited until their carriage 
had arrived, when they quitted Fitzroy Square. 

Mr. Barnes Newcome presently arrived, looking particularly 
smart and lively, with a large flower in his button-hole, and 
leaning on the arm of a friend. “ How do you do, Pendennis ? ” 
he says, with a peculiarly dandified air. “Did you dine here? 
You look as if you dined here ” (and Barnes, certainly, as if he had 
dined elsewhere). “ I was only asked to the cold soiree. Whom 
did you have for dinner? You had my mamma and the Baughtons, 
and my uncle and aunt, I know, for they are down below in the 
library, waiting for the carriage ; he is asleep, and she is as sulky 
as a bear.” 

“ Why did Mrs. Newcome say I should find nobody I knew up 
here?” asks Barnes’s companion. “On the contrary, there are 
lots of fellows I know. There’s Fred Bayham, dancing like a 
harlequin. There’s old Gandish, who used to be my drawing- 
master; and my Brighton friends, your uncle and cousin, Barnes. 
What relations are they to me? must be some relations. Fine 
fellow your cousin.” 

“H’m,” growls Barnes. “Very fine boy, — not spirited at all, 
— not fond of flattery, — not surrounded by toadies, — not fond 
of drink, — delightful boy ! See yonder, the young fellow is in 
conversation with his most intimate friend, a little crooked fellow, 
with long hair. Do you know who he is ? he is the son of old 
Todmorden’s butler. Upon my life it’s true.” 

“ And suppose it is ; what the deuce do I care ! ” cries Lord 
Kew. “Who can be more respectable than a butler? A man 
must be somebody’s son. When I am a middle aged man, I hope 
humbly I shall look like a butler myself. Suppose you were 
to put ten of Gunter’s men into the House of Lords, do you 
mean to say that they would not look as well as any average ten 
peers in the House ? Look at Lord Westcot ; he is exactly like 
a butler : that’s why the country has such confidence in him. 


THE NEWCOMES 


191 


I never dine with him but I fancy he ought to be at the sideboard. 
Here comes that insufferable little old Smee. How do you do, 
Mr. Smee?” 

Mr. Smee smiles his sweetest smile. With his rings, diamond 
shirt-studs, and red velvet waistcoat, there are few more elaborate 
middle-aged bucks than Andrew Smee. “ How do you do, my dear 
Lord ? ” cries the bland one. “ Who would ever have thought of 
seeing your Lordship here ! ” 

“ Why the deuce not, Mr. Smee ? ” asks Lord Kew abruptly. 
“Is it wrong to come here ? I have been in the house only five 
minutes, and three people have said the same thing to me — Mrs. 
Newcome, who is sitting downstairs in a rage waiting for her carriage, 
the condescending Barnes, and yourself. Why do you come here, 
Smee ? — How are you, Mr. Gandish ? How do the fine arts go ? ” 

“ Your Lordship’s kindness in asking for them will cheer them, 
if anything will,” says Mr. Gandish. “Your noble family has 
always patronised them. I am proud to be reckonised by your 
Lordship in this house, where the distinguished father of one of 
my pupils entertains us this evening. A most promising young 
man is young Mr. Clive — talents for a hamateur really most re- 
markable.” 

“ Excellent, upon my word — excellent,” cries Mr. Smee. “ I’m 
not an animal painter myself, and perhaps don’t think much of that 
branch of the profession ; but it seems to me the young fellow draws 
horses with the most wonderful spirit. I hope Lady Walham is 
very well, and that she was satisfied with her son’s portrait. 
Stockholm, I think, your brother is appointed to ? I wish I might 
be allowed to paint the elder as well as the younger brother, my 
Lord.” 

“I am an historical painter ; but whenever Lord Kew is painted 
I hope his Lordship will think of the old servant of his Lordship’s 
family, Charles Gandish,” cries the professor. 

“ I am like Susannah between the two Elders,” says Lord Kew. 
“ Let my innocence alone, Smee. Mr. Gandish, don’t persecute my 
modesty with your addresses. I won’t be painted. I am not a fit 
subject for an historical painter, Mr. Gandish.” 

“ Halcibiades sat to Praxiteles, and Pericles to Phidjas,” remarks 
Gandish. 

“ The cases are not quite similar,” says Lord Kew languidly. 
“You are no doubt fully equal to Praxiteles ; but I don’t see my 
resemblance to the other party. I should not look well as a hero, 
and Smee could not paint me handsome enough.” 

“ I would try, my dear Lord,” cries Mr. Smee. 

“I know you would, my dear fellow,” Lord Kew answered, 


192 


THE NEWCOMES 


looking at the painter with a lazy scorn in his eyes. “ Where is 
Colonel Newcome, Mr. Gandish?” Mr. Gandish replied that our 
gallant host was dancing a quadrille in the next room ; and the 
young gentleman walked on towards that apartment to pay his 
respects to the giver of the evening’s entertainment. 

Newcome’s behaviour to the young peer was ceremonious, but 
not in the least servile. He saluted the other’s superior rank, not 
his person, as he turned the guard out for a general officer. He 
never could be brought to be otherwise than cold and grave in his 
behaviour to John James ; nor was it without difficulty, when 
young Ridley and his son became pupils at Gandish’s, he could be 
induced to invite the former to his parties. “ An artist is any 
man’s equal,” he said. “ I have no prejudice of that sort ; and 
think that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson were fit company 
for any person, of whatever rank. But a young man whose father 
may have had to wait behind me at dinner, should not be brought 
into my company.” Clive compromises the dispute with a laugh. 
“ First,” says he, “I will wait till I am asked ; and then I promise 
I will not go to dine with Lord Todmorden.” 


CHAPTER XX 


CONTAINS MORE PARTICULARS OF THE COLONEL AND 
HIS BRETHREN 

I F Clive’s amusements, studies, or occupations, such as they 
were, filled his day pretty completely, and caused the young 
gentleman’s time to pass rapidly and pleasantly, his father, it 
must be owned, had no such resources, and the good Colonel’s 
idleness hung heavily upon him. He submitted very kindly to this 
infliction, however, as he would have done to any other, for Clive’s 
sake; and though he may have wished himself back with his 
regiment again, and engaged in the pursuits in which his life had 
been spent, he chose to consider these desires as very selfish and 
blamable on his part, and sacrificed them resolutely for his son’s 
welfare. The young fellow, I daresay, gave his parent no more 
credit for his long self-denial than many other children award to 
theirs. We take such life-offerings as our due commonly. The 
old French satirist avers that, in a love-affair, there is usually one 
person who loves, and the other qui se laisse aimer ; it is only in 
later days, perhaps, when the treasures of love are spent, and the 
kind hand cold which ministered them, that we remember how 
tender it was ; how soft to soothe ; how eager to shield ; how 
ready to support and caress. The ears may no longer hear which 
would have received our words of thanks so delightedly. Let us 
hope those fruits of love, though tardy, are yet not all too late ; 
and though we bring our tribute of reverence and gratitude, it 
may be to a gravestone, there is an acceptance even there for the 
stricken heart’s oblation of fond remorse, contrite memories, and 
pious tears. I am thinking of the love of Clive Newcome’s father 
for him (and, perhaps, young reader, of that of yours and mine for 
ourselves) ; how the old man lay awake, and devised kindnesses, 
and gave his all for the love of his son ; and the young man took, 
and spent, and slept, and made merry. Did we not say, at our 
tale’s commencement, that all stories were old ? Careless prodigals 
and anxious elders have been from the beginning : — and so may 
love, and repentance, and forgiveness endure even till the end. 

The stifling fogs, the slippery mud, the dun dreary November 
8 N 


THE NEWCOMES 


194 

mornings, when the Regent’s Park, where the Colonel took his 
early walk, was wrapped in yellow mist, must have been a melan- 
choly exchange for the splendour of Eastern sunrise, and the in- 
vigorating gallop at dawn, to which, for so many years of his life, 
Thomas Newcome had accustomed himself. His obstinate habit 
of early waking accompanied him to England, and occasioned the 
despair of his London domestics, who, if master wasn’t so awfully 
early, would have found no fault with him, for a gentleman as 
gives less trouble to his servants; as scarcely ever rings the bell 
for hisself; as will brush his own clothes; as will even boil his 
own shaving-water in the little hetna which he keeps up in his 
dressing-room ; as pays so regular, and never looks twice at the 
accounts ; such a man deserved to be loved by his household, and 
I dare say comparisons were made between him and his son, who 
do ring the bells, and scold if his boots ain’t nice, and horder about 
like a young lord. But Clive, though imperious, was very liberal 
and good-humoured, and not the worse served because he insisted 
upon exerting his youthful authority. As for friend Binnie, he had 
a hundred pursuits of his own, which made his time pass very 
comfortably. He had all the Lectures at the British Institution; 
he had the % Geographical Society, the Asiatic Society, and the 
Political Economy Club; and though he talked year after year of 
going to visit his relations in Scotland, the months and seasons 
passed away, and his feet still beat the London pavement. 

In spite of the cold reception his brothers gave him, duty was 
duty, and Colonel Newcome still proposed, or hoped to be well with 
the female members of the Newcome family ; and having, as we 
have said, plenty of time on his hands, and living at no very great 
distance from either of his brothers’ town houses, when their wives 
were in London, the elder Newcome was for paying them pretty 
constant visits. But after the .good gentleman had called twice or 
thrice upon his sister-in-law in Bryanstone Square — bringing, as 
was his wont, a present for this little niece, or a book for that — 
Mrs. Newcome, with her usual virtue, gave him to understand that 
the occupation of an English matron who, besides her multifarious 
family duties, had her own intellectual culture to mind, would not 
allow her to pass the mornings in idle gossip : and of course took 
great credit to herself for having so rebuked him. “ I am not 
above instruction of any age,” says she, thanking Heaven (or com- 
plimenting it rather) for having created a being so virtuous and 
humble-minded. “When Professor Schroff comes, I sit with my 
children, and take lessons in German; and I say my verbs with 
Maria and Tommy in the same class ! ” Yes, with curtseys and 
fine speeches she actually bowed her brother out of doors ; and the 


THE NEWCOMES 


195 

honest gentleman meekly left her, though with bewilderment, as he 
thought of the different hospitality to which he had been accustomed 
in the East, where no friend’s house was ever closed to him, where 
no neighbour was so busy but he had time to make Thomas New- 
come welcome. 

When Hobson Newcome’s boys came home for the holidays, 
their kind uncle was for treating them to the sights of the town, 
but here Virtue again interposed, and laid its interdict upon pleasure. 
“ Thank you very much, my dear Colonel,” says Virtue ; “ there 
never was surely such a kind, affectionate, unselfish creature as you 
are, and so indulgent for children, but my boys and yours are 
brought up on a very different plan. Excuse me for saying that I 
do not think it is advisable that they should even see too much of 
each other. Clive’s company is not good for them.” 

“ Great heavens, Maria ! ” cries the Colonel, starting up, “ do 
you mean that my boy’s society is not good enough for any boy 
alive 1 ” 

Maria turned very red : she had said not more than she meant, 
but more than she meant to say. “ My dear Colonel, how hot we 
are ! how angry you Indian gentlemen become with us poor women ! 
Your boy is much older than mine. He lives with artists, with all 
sorts of eccentric people. Our children are bred on quite a different 
plan. Hobson will succeed his father in the bank, and dear Samuel, 
I trust, will go into the Church. I told you before the views I 
had regarding the boys ; but it was most kind of you to think of 
them — most generous and kind.” 

“ That nabob of ours is a queer fish,” Hobson Newcome re- 
marked to his nephew Barnes. “He is as proud as Lucifer, he is 
always taking huff about one thing or the other. He went off in a 
fume the other night because your aunt objected to his taking the 
boys to the play. She don’t like their going to the play. My 
mother didn’t either. Your aunt is a woman who is uncommon 
wide-awake, I can tell you.” 

“ I always knew, sir, that my aunt was perfectly aware of the 
time of day,” says Barnes, with a bow. 

“ And then the Colonel flies out about his boy, and says that 
my wife insulted him ! I used to like that boy. Before his father 
came he was a good lad enough — a jolly brave little fellow.” 

“ I confess I did not know Mr. Clive at that interesting period 
of his existence,” remarks Barnes. 

“ But since he has taken this madcap freak of turning painter,” 
the uncle continues, “ there is no understanding the chap. Did 
you ever see such a set of fellows as the Colonel had got together 
at his party the other night 1 ? Dirty chaps in velvet coats and 


THE NEWCOMES 


196 

beards ? They looked like a set of mountebanks. And this young 
Clive is going to turn painter ! ” 

“ Very advantageous thing for the family. He’ll do our pictures 
for nothing. I always said he was a darling boy,” simpered Barnes. 

“ Darling jackass ! ” growled out the senior. “ Confound it, 
why doesn’t my brother set him up in some respectable business ? 
I ain’t proud. I have not married an earl’s daughter. No offence 
to you, Barnes.” 

“ Not at all, sir. I can’t help it if my grandfather is a gentle- 
man,” says Barnes, with a fascinating smile. 

The uncle laughs. “ I mean I don’t care what a fellow is if he 
is a good fellow. But a painter ! hang it — a painter’s no trade at 
all — I don’t fancy seeing one of our family sticking up pictures for 
sale. I don’t like it, Barnes.” 

“ Hush ! here comes his distinguished friend, Mr. Pendennis,” 
whispers Barnes ; and the uncle, growling out, “ Damn all literary 
fellows — all artists — the whole lot of them ! ” turns away. Barnes 
waves three languid fingers of recognition towards Pendennis ; and 
when the uncle and nephew have moved out of the club newspaper- 
room, little Tom Eaves comes up and tells the present reporter every 
word of their conversation. 

Very soon Mrs. Newcome announced that their Indian brother 
found the society of Bryanstone Square very little to his taste, as 
indeed how should he being a man of a good, harmless disposition 
certainly, but of small intellectual culture. It could not be helped. 
She had done her utmost to make him welcome, and grieved that 
their pursuits were not more congenial. She heard that he was 
much more intimate in Park Lane. Possibly the superior rank of 
Lady Ann’s family might present charms to Colonel Newcome, who 
fell asleep at her assemblies. His boy, she was afraid, was leading 
the most irregular life. He was growing a pair of mustachios, and 
going about with all sorts of wild associates. She found no fault ; 
who was she, to find fault with any one 1 But she had been com- 
pelled to hint that her children must not be too intimate with him. 
And so, between one brother who meant no unkindness, and another 
who was all affection and good-will, this undoubting woman created 
difference, distrust, dislike, which might one day possibly lead to 
open rupture. The wicked are wicked no doubt, and they go astray 
and they fall, and they come by their deserts ; but who can tell the 
mischief which the very virtuous do ? 

To her sister-in-law, Lady Ann, the Colonel’s society was more 
welcome. The affectionate gentleman never tired of doing kind- 
nesses to his brother’s many children, and as Mr. Clive’s pursuits 


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197 


now separated him a good deal from his father, the Colonel, not 
perhaps without a sigh that fate should so separate him from the 
society which he loved best in the world, consoled himself as best 
he might with his nephews and nieces, especially with Ethel, for 
whom his belle passion , conceived at first sight, never diminished. 
“ If Uncle Newcome had a hundred children,” Ethel said, who was 
rather jealous of disposition, “he would spoil them all.” He 
found a fine occupation in breaking a pretty little horse for her, of 
which he made her a present, and there was no horse in the Park 
that was so handsome, and surely no girl who looked more beautiful, 
than Ethel Newcome with her broad hat and red riband, with her 
thick black locks waving round her bright face, galloping along 
the ride on “ Bhurtpore.” Occasionally Clive was at their riding 
parties, when the Colonel would fall back and fondly survey the 
young people cantering side by side over the grass ; but by tacit 
convention it was arranged that the cousins should be but seldom 
together ; the Colonel might be his niece’s companion, and no one 
could receive him with a more joyous welcome ; but when Mr. Clive 
made his appearance with his father at the Park Lane door, a 
certain gene was visible in Miss Ethel, who would never mount 
except with Colonel Newcome’s assistance, and who, especially after 
Mr. Clive’s famous mustachios made their appearance, rallied him, 
and remonstrated with him regarding those ornaments, and treated 
him with much distance and dignity. She asked him if he was 
going into the army ? she could not understand how any but military 
men could wear mustachios ! and then she looked fondly and archly 
at her uncle, and said she liked none that were not grey. 

Clive set her down as a very haughty, spoiled, aristocratic young 
creature. If he had been in love with her, no doubt he would have 
sacrificed even those beloved new-born whiskers for the charmer. 
Had he not already bought on credit the necessary implements in 
a fine dressing-case, from young Moss “? But he was not in love 
with her ; otherwise he would have found a thousand opportunities 
of riding with her, walking with her, meeting her, in spite of all 
prohibitions tacit or expressed, all governesses, guardians, mamma’s 
punctilios, and kind hints from friends. For a while Mr. Clive 
thought himself in love with his cousin, than whom no more beau- 
tiful young girl could be seen in any park, ball, or drawing-room ; 
and he drew a hundred pictures of her, and discoursed about' her 
beauties to J. J., who fell in love with her on hearsay. But at 
this time, Mademoiselle Saltarelli was dancing at Drury Lane 
Theatre, and it certainly may be said that Clive’s first love was 
bestowed upon that beauty; whose picture, of course, he drew in 
most of her favourite characters ; and for whom his passion lasted 


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until the end of the season, when her night was announced, tickets 
to be had at the theatre, or of Mademoiselle Saltarelli, Buckingham 
Street, Strand. Then it was that, with a throbbing heart and a 
five-pound note, to engage places for the houri’s benefit, Clive beheld 
Madame Rogomme, Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s mother, who enter- 
tained him in the French language in a dark parlour smelling of 
onions. And oh ! issuing from the adjoining dining-room (where 
was a dingy vision of a feast and pewter pots upon a darkling table- 
cloth) — could that lean, scraggy, old beetle-browed yellow face, 
who cried, “ Oil es-tu done, maman ? ” with such a shrill nasal voice 
— could that elderly vixen be the blooming and divine Saltarelli ? 
Clive drew her picture as she was, and a likeness of Madame 
Rogomme, her mamma. A Mosaic youth, profusely jewelled, and 
scented at once with tobacco and eau-de-cologne, occupied Clive’s 
stall on Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s night ; it was young Mr. Moss, of 
Gandish’s, to whom Newcome ceded his place, and who laughed (as 
he always did at Clive’s jokes) when the latter told the story of his 
interview with the dancer. “ Paid five pound to see that woman; 
I could ‘have took you behind the scenes ” (or “ beide the seeds,” 
Mr. Moss said), “and showed her to you for dothing.” Did he 
take Clive behind the scenes 1 Over this part of the young gentle- 
man’s life, without implying the least harm to him — for have not 
others been behind the scenes ? and can there be any more dreary 
object than those whitened and raddled old women who shudder at 
the slips 1 — over this stage of Clive Newcome’s life we may surely 
drop the curtain. 

It is pleasanter to contemplate the kind old face of Clive’s 
father, that sweet young blushing lady by his side, as the two ride 
homewards at sunset. The grooms behind in quiet conversation 
about horses, as men never tire of talking about horses. Ethel 
wants to know about battles ; about lovers’ lamps, which she has 
read of in “ Lalla Rookh,” — “ Have you ever seen them, uncle, float- 
ing down the Ganges of a night h ” About Indian widows, — “ Did 
you actually see one burning, and hear her scream as you rode 
up 1 ” She wonders whether he will tell her anything about 
Clive’s mother : how she must have loved Uncle Newcome ! Ethel 
can’t bear, somehow, to think that her name was Mrs. Casey, — 
perhaps he was very fond of her ; though he scarcely ever 
mentions her name. She was nothing like that good old funny 
Miss Honeyman at Brighton. Who could the person be 1 — a person 
that her uncle knew ever so long ago — a French lady, whom her 
uncle says Ethel often resembles 1 That is why he speaks French 
so well. He can recite whole pages out of Racine. Perhaps 
it was the French lady who taught him ? And he was not very 





“ HAVE YOU KILLED MANY MEN WITH THIS SWORD, UNCLE ?” 












































































































































































































— 

















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1.99 


happy at the Hermitage (though grandpapa was a very kind good 
man), and he upset papa in a little carriage, and was wild, and got 
into disgrace, and was sent to India. He could not have been very 
bad, Ethel thinks, looking at him with her honest eyes. Last week 
he went to the Drawing-room, and papa presented him. His 
uniform of grey and silver was quite old, yet he looked much 
grander than Sir Brian in his new deputy-lieutenant’s dress. “Next 
year, when I am presented, you must come too, sir,” says Ethel. 
“ I insist upon it, you must come too ! ” 

“ I will order a new uniform, Ethel,” says her uncle. 

The girl laughs. “When little Egbert took hold of your 
sword, uncle, and asked you how many people you had killed, do 
you know I had the same question in my mind ; and I thought 
when you went to the Drawing-room, perhaps the King will knight 
him. But instead he knighted mamma’s apothecary, Sir Danby 
Jilks —that horrid little man — and I won’t have you knighted 
any more.” 

“ I hope Egbert won’t ask Sir Danby Jilks how many people he 
has killed,” says the Colonel, laughing; but thinking the joke too 
severe upon Sir Danby and the profession, he forthwith apologises 
by narrating many anecdotes he knows to the credit of surgeons. 
How, when the fever broke out on board the ship going to India, 
their surgeon devoted himself to the safety of the crew, and died 
himself, leaving directions for the treatment of the patients when 
he was gone ! What heroism the doctors showed during the cholera 
in India ; and what courage he had seen some of them exhibit in 
action : attending the wounded men under the hottest fire, and ex- 
posing themselves as readily as the bravest troops. Ethel declares 
that her uncle always will talk of other people’s courage, and never 
say a word about his own; and “the only reason,” she says, 
“which made me like that odious Sir Thomas de Boots, who 
laughs so, and looks so red, and pays such horrid compliments to 
all ladies, was, that he praised you, uncle, at Newcome, last year, 
when Barnes and he came to us at Christmas. Why did you 
not come ? Mamma and I went to see your old nurse ; and we 
found her such a nice old lady.” So the pair talked kindly on, 
riding homewards through the pleasant summer twilight. Mamma 
had gone out to dinner; and there were cards for three parties 
afterwards. “ Oh, how I wish it was next year ! ” says Miss 
Ethel. 

Many a splendid assembly, and many a brilliant next year, 
will the ardent and hopeful young creature enjoy ; but in the 
midst of her splendour and triumphs, buzzing flatterers, con- 
quered rivals, prostrate admirers, no doubt she will think some- 


200 


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times of that quiet season before the world began for her, and 
that dear old friend on whose arm she leaned while she was yet a 
young girl. 

The Colonel comes to Park Lane early in the forenoon, when 
the mistress of the house, surrounded by her little ones, is ad- 
ministering dinner to them. He behaves with splendid courtesy 
to Miss Quigley, the governess, and makes a point of taking wine 
with her, and of making a most profound bow during that cere- 
mony. Miss Quigley cannot help thinking Colonel Newcome’s bow 
very fine. She has an idea that his late Majesty must have bowed 
in that way : she flutteringly imparts this opinion to Lady Ann’s 
maid, who tells her mistress, who tells Miss Ethel, who watches 
the Colonel the next time he takes wine with Miss Quigley, and 
they laugh, and then Ethel tells him ; so that the gentleman and 
the governess have to blush ever after when they drink wine 
together. When she is walking with her little charges in the Park, 
or in that before-mentioned paradise nigh to Apsley House, faint 
signals of welcome appear on her wan cheeks. She knows the dear 
Colonel amongst a thousand horsemen. If Ethel makes for her 
uncle purses, guard-chains, antimacassars, and the like beautiful 
and useful articles, I believe it is in reality Miss Quigley who does 
four-fifths of the work, as she sits alone in the schoolroom, high, 
high up in that lone house, when the little ones are long since 
asleep, before her dismal little tea-tray, and her little desk, contain- 
ing her mother’s letters and her mementoes of home. 

There are, of course, numberless fine parties in Park Lane, 
where the Colonel knows he would be very welcome. But if there 
be grand assemblies, he does not care to come. “ I like to go to 
the club best,” he says to Lady Ann. “We talk there as you do 
here about persons, and about Jack marrying, and Tom dying, and 
so forth. But we have known Jack and Tom all our lives, and so 
are interested in talking about them, just as you are in speaking 
of your own friends and habitual society. They are people 
whose names I have sometimes read in the newspaper, but whom 
I never thought of meeting until I came to your house. What 
has an old fellow like me to say to your young dandies or old 
dowagers ? ” 

“Mamma is very odd and sometimes very captious, my dear 
Colonel,” said Lady Ann, with a blush ; “ she suffers so frightfully 
from tic that we are all bound to pardon her.” 

Truth to tell, old Lady Kew had been particularly rude to 
Colonel Newcome and Clive. Ethel’s birthday befell in the spring, 
on which occasion she was wont to have a juvenile assembly, chiefly 
of girls of her own age and condition ; who came, accompanied by 


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201 


a few governesses, and they played and sang their little duets and 
choruses together, and enjoyed a gentle refection of sponge-cakes, 
jellies, tea, and the like. The Colonel, who was invited to this 
little party, sent a fine present to his favourite Ethel ; and Clive 
and his friend J. J. made a funny series of drawings, representing 
the life of a young lady as they imagined it, and drawing her 
progress from her cradle upwards : now engaged with her doll, then 
with her dancing-master ; now marching in her backboard ; now 
crying over her German lessons; and dressed for her first ball 
finally, and bestowing her hand upon a dandy of preternatural 
ugliness, who was kneeling at her feet as the happy man. -This 
picture was the delight of the laughing, happy girls; except, per- 
haps, the little cousins from Bryanstone Square, who were invited 
to Ethel’s party, but were so overpowered by the prodigious new 
dresses in which their mamma had attired them, that they could 
admire nothing but their rustling pink frocks, their enormous 
sashes, their lovely new silk stockings. 

Lady Kew coming to London attended on the party, and 
presented her granddaughter with a sixpenny pincushion. The 
Colonel had sent Ethel a beautiful little gold watch and chain. 
Her aunt had complimented her with that refreshing work, Alison’s 
“ History of Europe,” richly bound. Lady Kew’s pincushion made 
rather a poor figure among the gifts, whence probably arose her 
Ladyship’s ill-humour. 

Ethel’s grandmother became exceedingly testy when, the Colonel 
arriving, Ethel ran up to him and thanked him for the beautiful 
watch, in return for which she gave him a kiss, which, I dare say, 
amply repaid Colonel Newcome ; and shortly after him Mr. Clive 
arrived, looking uncommonly handsome, with that smart little beard 
and mustachios with which nature had recently gifted him. As he 
entered, all the girls who had been admiring his pictures began 
to clap their hands. Mr. Clive Newcome blushed, and looked 
none the worse for that indication of modesty. 

Lady Kew had met Colonel Newcome a half-dozen times at 
her daughter’s house : but on this occasion she had quite forgotten 
him, for when the Colonel made her a bow, her Ladyship regarded 
him steadily, and beckoning her daughter to her, asked who the 
gentleman was who had just kissed Ethel 1 ? Trembling as she 
always did before her mother, Lady Ann explained. Lady Kew 
said “ Oh ! ” and left Colonel Newcome blushing and rather em- 
barrassd de sa per sonne before her. 

With the clapping of hands that greeted Clive’s arrival, the 
Countess was by no means more good-humoured. Not aware of 
her wrath, the young fellow, who had also previously been presented 


202 


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to her, came forward presently to make her his compliments. 
“Pray who are you?” she said, looking at him very earnestly in 
the face. He told her his name. 

“ Hm,” said Lady Kew, “ I have heard of you, and I have heard 
very little good of you.” 

“ Will your Ladyship please to give me your informant ? ” cried 
out Colonel Newcome. 

Barnes Newcome, who had condescended to attend his sister’s 
little fete , and had been languidly watching the frolics of the young 
people, looked very much alarmed. 


CHAPTER XXI 


IS SENTIMENTAL, BUT SHORT 

W ITHOUT wishing to disparage the youth of other nations, 
I think a well-bred English lad has this advantage over 
them, that his bearing is commonly more modest than 
theirs. He does not assume the tail-coat and the manners of man- 
hood too early ; he holds his tongue, and listens to his elders ; his 
mind blushes as well as his cheeks ; he does not know how to make 
bows and pay compliments like the young Frenchman; nor to 
contradict his seniors as, I am informed, American striplings do. 
Boys, who learn nothing else at our public schools, learn at least 
good manners, or what we consider to be such ; and with regard to 
the person at present under consideration, it is certain that all his 
acquaintances, excepting perhaps his dear cousin Barnes Newcome, 
agreed in considering him as a very frank, manly, modest, and 
agreeable young fellow. My friend Warrington found a grim 
pleasure in his company; and his bright face, droll humour, and 
kindly laughter were always welcome in our chambers. Honest 
Fred Bayham was charmed to be in his society ; and used patheti- 
cally to aver that he himself might have been such a youth, had he 
been blest with a kind father to watch, and good friends to guide 
his early career. In fact, Fred was by far the most didactic of 
Clive’s bachelor acquaintances, pursued the young man with endless 
advice and sermons, and held himself up as a warning to Clive, and 
a touching example of the evil consequences of early idleness and 
dissipation. Gentlemen of much higher rank in the world took a 
fancy to the lad. Captain Jack Belsize introduced him to his own 
mess, as also to the Guard dinner at St. James’s ; and my Lord 
Kew invited him to Kewbury, his Lordship’s house in Oxfordshire, 
where Clive enjoyed hunting, shooting, and plenty of good company. 
Mrs. Newcome groaned in spirit when she heard of these proceed- 
ings; and feared, feared very much that that unfortunate young 
man was going to ruin ; and Barnes Newcome amiably disseminated 
reports amongst his family that the lad was plunged in all sorts of 
debaucheries ; that he was tipsy every night : that he was engaged, 
in his sober moments, with dice, the turf, or worse amusements ; 


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and that his head was so turned by living with Kew and Belsize, 
that the little rascal’s pride and arrogance were perfectly insufferable. 
Ethel would indignantly deny these charges ; then perhaps credit a 
few of them ; and she looked at Clive with melancholy eyes when 
he came to visit his aunt ; and, I hope, prayed that Heaven might 
mend his wicked ways. The truth is, the young fellow enjoyed 
life, as one of his age and spirit might be expected to do ; but he 
did very little harm, and meant less ; and was quite unconscious of 
the reputation which his kind friends were making for him. 

There had been a long-standing promise that Clive and his 
father were to go to Newcome at Christmas ; and I dare say Ethel 
proposed to reform the young prodigal, if prodigal he was, for she 
busied herself delightedly in preparing the apartments which they 
were to inhabit during their stay — speculated upon it in a hundred 
pleasant ways, putting off her visit to this pleasant neighbour, or 
that pretty scene in the vicinage, until her uncle should come and 
they should be enabled to enjoy the excursion together. And, be- 
fore the arrival of her relatives, Ethel, with one of her young 
brothers, went to see Mrs. Mason ; and introduced herself as 
Colonel Newcome’s niece; and came back charmed with the old 
lady, and eager once more in defence of Clive (when that young 
gentleman’s character happened to be called in question by her 
brother Barnes), for had she not seen the kindest letter, which Clive 
had written to old Mrs. Mason, and the beautiful drawing of his 
father on horseback and in regimentals, waving his sword in front 
of the gallant — th Bengal Cavalry, which the lad had sent down to 
the good old woman ? He could not be very bad, Ethel thought, 
who was so kind and thoughtful for the poor. His father’s son 
could not be altogether a reprobate. When Mrs. Mason, seeing 
how good and beautiful Ethel was, and thinking in her heart 
nothing could be too good or beautiful for Clive, nodded her kind 
old head at Miss Ethel, and said she should like to find a husband 
for her, Miss Ethel blushed, and looked handsomer than ever ; and 
at home, when she was describing the interview, never mentioned 
this part of her talk with Mrs. Mason. 

But the enfant terrible , young Alfred, did : announcing to all 
the company at dessert, that Ethel was in love with Clive — that 
Clive' was coming to marry her — that Mrs. Mason, the old woman 
at Newcome, had told him so. 

“ I dare say she has told the tale all over Newcome ! ” shrieked 
out Mr. Barnes. “ I dare say it will be in the Independent next 
week. By Jove, it’s a pretty connection — and nice acquaintances 
this uncle of ours brings us ! ” A fine battle ensued upon the 
receipt and discussion of this intelligence : Barnes was more than 


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205 


usually bitter and sarcastic; Ethel haughtily recriminated, losing 
her temper, and then her firmness, until, fairly bursting into tears, 
she taxed Barnes with meanness and malignity in for ever uttering 
stories to his cousin’s disadvantage ; and pursuing with constant 
slander and cruelty one of the very best of men. She rose and left 
the table in great tribulation-— she went to her room and wrote a letter 
to her uncle, blistered with tears, in which she besought him not to 
come to Newcome. Perhaps she went and looked at the apartments 
which she had adorned and prepared for his reception. It was for 
him and for his company that she was eager. She had met no one so 
generous and gentle, so honest and unselfish, until she had seen him. 

Lady Ann knew the ways of women very well ; and when Ethel 
that night, still in great indignation and scorn against Barnes, 
announced that she had written a letter to her uncle, begging the 
Colonel not to come at Christmas, Ethel’s mother soothed the 
wounded girl, and treated her with peculiar gentleness and affection ; 
and she wisely gave Mr. Barnes to understand, that if he wished 
to bring about that very attachment, the idea of which made him 
so angry, he could use no better means than those which he chose to 
employ at present, of constantly abusing and insulting poor Clive, 
and awakening Ethel’s sympathies by mere opposition. And Ethel’s 
sad little letter was extracted from the post-bag ; and her mother 
brought it to her, sealed, in her own room, where the young lady 
burned it : being easily brought by Lady Ann’s quiet remonstrances 
to perceive that it was best no allusion should take place to the 
silly dispute which had occurred that evening ; and that Clive and 
his father should come for the Christmas holidays, if they were so 
minded. But when they came, there was no Ethel at Newcome. 
She was gone on a visit to her sick aunt, Lady Julia. Colonel 
Newcome passed the holidays sadly without his young favourite, 
and Clive consoled himself by knocking down pheasants with Sir 
Brian’s keepers ; and increased his cousin’s attachment for him by 
breaking the knees of Barnes’s favourite mare out hunting. It was a 
dreary entertainment ; father and son were glad enough to get away 
from it, and to return to their own humbler quarters in London. 

Thomas Newcome had now been for three years in possession of 
that felicity which his soul longed after ; and, had any friend of his 
asked him if he was happy, he would have answered in the affirma- 
tive no doubt, and protested that he was in the enjoyment of every- 
thing a reasonable man could desire. And yet, in spite of his 
happiness, his honest face grew more melancholy ; his loose clothes 
hung only the looser on his lean limbs ; he ate his meals without 
appetite ; his nights were restless ; and he would sit for hours 
silent in the midst of his family, so that Mr. Binnie first began 


206 


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jocularly to surmise that Tom was crossed in love ; then seriously 
to think that his health was suffering, and that a doctor should be 
called to see him ; and at last to agree that idleness was not good 
for the Colonel, and that he missed the military occupation to which 
he had been for so many years accustomed. 

The Colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and contented. 
What could he want more than he had — the society of his son, for 
the present ; and a prospect of quiet for his declining days ? Binnie 
vowed that his friend’s days had no business to decline as yet; 
that a sober man of fifty ought to be at his best; and that New- 
come had grown older in three years in Europe, than in a quarter 
of a century in the East — all which statements were true, though 
the Colonel persisted in denying them. 

He was very restless. He was always finding business in 
distant quarters of England. He must go visit Tom Barker who 
was settled in Devonshire, or Harry Johnson who had retired and 
was living in Wales. He surprised Miss Honeyman by the fre- 
quency of his visits to Brighton, and always came away much 
improved in health by the sea air, and by constant riding with 
the harriers there. He appeared at Bath and at Cheltenham, where, 
as we know, there are many old Indians. Mr. Binnie was not 
indisposed to accompany him on some of these jaunts — “ provided,” 
the civilian said, “you don’t take young Hopeful, who is much 
better without us; and let us two old fogeys enjoy ourselves together.” 

Clive was not sorry to be left alone. The father knew that 
only too well. The young man had occupations, ideas, associates, 
in whom the elder could take no interest. Sitting below in his 
blank, cheerless bedroom, Newcome could hear the lad aud his 
friends talking, singing, and making merry overhead. Something 
would be said in Clive’s well-known tones, and a roar of laughter 
would proceed from the youthful company. They had all sorts of 
tricks, bywords, waggeries, of which the father could not understand 
the jest nor the secret. He longed to share in it, but the party 
would be hushed if he went in to join it ; and he would come away 
sad at heart, to think that his presence should be a signal for silence 
among them ; and that his son could not be merry in his company. 

We must not quarrel with Clive and Clive’s friends, because 
they could not joke and be free in the presence of the worthy 
gentleman. If they hushed when he came in, Thomas Newcome’s 
sad face would seem to look round — appealing to one after another 
of them, and asking, “ Why don’t you go on laughing ? ” A com- 
pany of old comrades shall be merry and laughing together, and 
the entrance of a single youngster will stop the conversation ; and 
if men of middle age feel this restraint with our juniors, the young 


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207 


ones surely have a right to be silent before their elders. The boys 
are always mum under the eyes of the usher. There is scarce any 
parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but must feel 
sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers ; and 
wishes and secrets quite beyond the parental control ; and, as people 
are vain, long after they are fathers, ay, or grandfathers, and not 
seldom fancy that mere personal desire of domination is overween- 
ing anxiety and love for their family, no doubt that common outcry 
against thankless children might often be shown to prove, not that 
the son is disobedient, but the father too exacting. When a mother 
(as fond mothers often will) vows that she knows every thought 
in her daughter’s heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal 
too much; nor can there be a wholesomer task for the elders, as 
our young subjects grow up, naturally demanding liberty and 
citizen’s rights, than for us gracefully to abdicate our sovereign 
pretensions and claims of absolute control. There’s many a family 
chief who governs wisely and gently, who is loth to give the power 
up when he should. Ah, be sure, is it not youth alone that has need 
to learn humility ! By their very virtues, and the purity of their 
lives, many good parents create flatterers for themselves, and so live 
in the midst of a filial court of parasites ; and seldom without a pang 
of unwillingness, and often not at all, will they consent to forego their 
autocracy, and exchange the tribute they have been wont to exact 
of love and obedience for the willing offering of love and freedom. 

Our good Colonel was not of the tyrannous, but of the loving 
order of fathers ; and having fixed his whole heart upon this darling 
youth, his son, was punished, as I suppose such worldly and selfish 
love ought to be punished (so Mr. Honeyman says, at least in his 
pulpit), by a hundred little mortifications, disappointments, and 
secret wounds, which stung not the less severely though never 
mentioned by their victim. 

Sometimes he would have a company of such gentlemen as 
Messrs. Warrington, Honeyman, and Pendennis, when haply a 
literary conversation would ensue after dinner; and the merits of 
our present poets and writers would be discussed with the claret. 
Honeyman was well enough read in profane literature, especially of 
the lighter sort ; and, I dare say, could have passed a satisfactory 
examination in Balzac, Dumas, and Paul de Kock himself, of all 
whose works our good host was entirely ignorant, — as indeed he was 
of graver books, and of earlier books, and of books in general, — 
except those few which, we have said, formed his travelling library. 
He heard opinions that amazed and bewildered him : he heard that 
Byron was no great poet, though a very clever man ; he heard that 
there had been a wicked persecution against Mr. Pope’s memory 


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and fame, and that it was time to reinstate him ; that his favourite, 
Doctor Johnson, talked admirably, but did not write English ; that 
young Keats was a genius to be estimated in future days with young 
Raphael ; and that a young gentleman of Cambridge who had lately 
published two volumes of verses, might take rank with the greatest 
poets of all. Doctor Johnson not write English ! Lord Byron not 
one of the greatest poets of the world ! Sir Walter a poet of the 
second order ! Mr. Pope attacked for inferiority and want of 
imagination ; Mr. Keats and this young Mr. Tennyson of Cambridge, 
the chief of modern poetic literature ! What were these new dicta, 
which Mr. Warrington delivered with a puff of tobacco smoke ; to 
which Mr. Honeyman blandly assented, and Clive listened with 
pleasure ? Such opinions were not of the Colonel’s time. He tried 
in vain to construe “ QEnone,” and to make sense of “Lamia.” 
“Ulysses” he could understand; but what were these prodigious 
laudations bestowed on it? And that reverence for Mr. Words- 
worth, what did it mean? Had he not written “Peter Bell,” and 
been turned into deserved ridicule by all the reviews ? Was that 
dreary “ Excursion ” to be compared to Goldsmith’s “ Traveller,” 
or Doctor Johnson’s “ Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal ” ? 
If the young men told the truth, where had been the truth in his 
own young days? and in what ignorance had our forefathers been 
brought up ! Mr. Addison was only an elegant essayist and shallow 
trifler ! All these opinions were openly uttered over the Colonel’s 
claret, as he and Mr. Binnie sat wondering at the speakers, who 
were knocking the gods of their youth about their ears. To Binnie 
the shock was not so great ; the hard-headed Scotchman had read 
Hume in his college days, and sneered at some of the gods even at 
that early time. But with Newcome the admiration for the litera- 
ture of the last century was an article of belief, and the incredulity 
of the young men seemed rank blasphemy. “You will be sneering 
at Shakspeare next,” he said : and was silenced, though not better 
pleased, when his youthful guests told him that Doctor Goldsmith 
sneered at him too; that Doctor Johnson did not understand him; 
and that Congreve, in his own day and afterwards, was considered 
to be, in some points, Shakspeare’s superior. “ What do you think 
a man’s criticism is worth, sir,” cries Mr. Warrington, “ who says 
those lines of Mr. Congreve, about a church — 


4 How reverend is the face of yon tall pile, 

Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 

To bear aloft its vast and ponderous roof, 

By its own weight made steadfast and immovable ; 
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe 
And terror on my aching sight ’ — et ccetera — 


THE NEWCOMES 


209 

what do you think of a critic who says those lines are finer than 
anything Shakspeare ever wrote ? ” A dim consciousness of danger 
for Clive, a terror that his son had got into the society of heretics 
and unbelievers, came over the Colonel; and then presently, as 
was the wont with his modest soul, a gentle sense of humility. 
He was in the wrong, perhaps, and these younger men were right. 
Who was he, to set up his judgment against men of letters, educated 
at College ? It was better that Clive should follow them than him, 
who had had but a brief schooling, and that neglected, and who 
had not the original genius of his son’s brilliant companions. We 
particularise these talks, and the little incidental mortifications 
which one of the best of men endured, not because the conversations 
are worth the remembering or recording, but because they presently 
very materially influenced his own and his son’s future history. 

In the midst of the artists and their talk the poor Colonel was 
equally in the dark. They assaulted this Academician and that ; 
laughed at Mr. Hay don, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary ; 
deified Mr. Turner on one side of the table, and on the other scorned 
him as a madman ; nor could Newcome comprehend a word of their 
jargon. Some sense there must be in their conversation : Clive 
joined eagerly in it, and took one side or another. But what was 
all this rapture about a snuffy-brown picture called Titian, this 
delight in three flabby nymphs by Rubens, and so forth? As for 
the vaunted Antique, and the Elgin marbles — it might be that that 
battered torso was a miracle, and that broken-nosed bust a perfect 
beauty. He tried and tried to see that they were. He went 
away privily and worked at the National Gallery with a catalogue, 
and passed hours in the Museum before the ancient statues, desper- 
ately praying to comprehend them, and puzzled before them, as he 
remembered he was puzzled before the Greek rudiments, as a child, 
when he cried over 6 kou rj a\r)0r]s, /cat to d\.Y)0es. Whereas, when 
Clive came to look at these same things, his eyes would lighten up 
with pleasure, and his cheeks flush with enthusiasm. He seemed 
to drink in colour as he would a feast of wine. Before the statues 
he would wave his finger, following the line of grace, and burst into 
ejaculations of delight and admiration. “Why can’t I love the 
things which he loves?” thought Newcome; “why am I blind to 
the beauties which he admires so much ; and am I unable to com- 
prehend what he evidently understands at his young age ? ” 

So, as he thought what vain egotistical hopes he used to form 
about the boy when he was away in India — how in his plans for 
the happy future Clive was to be always at his side; how they 
were to read, work, play, think, be merry together — a sickening 
and humiliating sense of the reality came over him, and he sadly 
8 o 


210 


THE NEWCOMBS 


contrasted it with the former fond anticipations. Together they 
were, yet he was alone still. His thoughts were not the boy’s, and 
his affections rewarded but with a part of the young man’s heart. 
Very likely other lovers have suffered equally. Many a man and 
woman have been incensed and worshipped, and have shown no 
more feeling than is to be expected from idols. There is yonder 
statue in St. Peter’s, of which the toe is worn away with kisses, 
and which sits, and will sit eternally, prim and cold. As the young 
man grew, it seemed to the father as if each day separated them 
more and more. He 1 himself became more melancholy and silent. 
His friend the Civilian marked the ennui, and commented on it in 
his laughing way. Sometimes he announced to the club that Tom 
Newcome was in love ; then he thought it was not Tom’s heart but 
his liver that was affected, and recommended blue pill. 0 thou 
fond fool ! who art thou to know any man’s heart save thine alone ? 
Wherefore were wings made and do feathers grow, but that birds 
should fly? The instinct that bids you love your nest, leads the 
young ones to seek a tree and a mate of their own. As if Thomas 
Newcome, by poring over poems or pictures ever so much, could 
read them with Clive’s eyes ! — as if by sitting mum over his wine, 
but watching till the lad came home with his latchkey (when the 
Colonel crept back to his own room in his stockings), by prodigal 
bounties, by stealthy affection, by any schemes or prayers, he could 
hope to remain first in his son’s heart ! 

One day going into Clive’s study, where the lad was so deeply 
engaged that he did not hear the father’s steps advancing, Thomas 
Newcome found his son, pencil in hand, poring over a paper, which, 
blushing, he thrust hastily into his breast-pocket as soon as he saw 
his visitor. The father was deeply smitten and mortified. “ I — I am 
sorry you have any secrets from me, Clive,” he gasped out at length. 

The boy’s face lighted up with humour. “ Here it is, father, 
if you would like to see : ” — and he pulled out a paper which 
contained neither more nor less than a copy of very flowery verses 
about a certain young lady, who had succeeded (after I know not 
how many predecessors) to the place of prima donna assoluta in 
Clive’s heart. And be pleased, madam, not to be too eager with 
your censure, and fancy that Mr. Clive or his Chronicler would 
insinuate anything wrong. I dare say you felt a flame or two 
before you were married yourself; and that the Captain or the 
Curate, and the interesting young foreigner with whom you danced, 
caused your heart to beat before you bestowed that treasure on 
Mr. Candour. Clive was doing no more than your own son will do 
when he is eighteen or nineteen years old himself — if he is a lad of 
any spirit, and a worthy son of so charming a lady as yourself. 


CHAPTER XXII 


DESCRIBES A VISIT TO PARIS; WITH ACCIDENTS AND 
INCIDENTS IN LONDON 

R. CLIVE, as we have said, had now begun to make 



acquaintances of his own; and the chimney-glass in his 


^ A study was decorated with such a number of cards of invita- 
tion ais made his ex-fellow-student of Gandish’s, young Moss, when 
admitted into that sanctum, stare with respectful astonishment. 
“ Lady Bary Rowe at obe,” the young Hebrew read out ; “ Lady 
Baughton at obe, dadsig ! By eyes ! what a tiptop swell you’re 
a gettid to be, Newcome ! I guess this is a different sort of busi- 
ness to the hops at old Levison’s, where you first learned the polka ; 
and where we had to pay a shilling a glass for negus ! ” 

“We had to pay! You never paid anything, Moss,” cries 
Clive, laughing; and indeed the negus imbibed by Mr. Moss did 
not cost that prudent young fellow a penny. 

“ Well, well; I suppose at these swell parties you ’ave as buch 
champade as ever you like,” continues Moss. “Lady Kicklebury 
at obe — small early party. Why, I declare you know the whole 
peerage ! I say, if any of these swells want a little tiptop lace, 
a real bargain, or diamonds, you know, you might put in a word 
for us, and do us a good turn.” 

“ Give me some of your cards,” says Clive ; “ I can distribute 
them about at the balls I go to. But you must treat my friends 
better than you serve me. Those cigars which you sent me were 
abominable, Moss ; the groom in the stable won’t smoke them.” 

“ What a regular swell that Newcome has become ! ” says Mr. 
Moss to an old companion, another of Clive’s fellow-students : “ I 
saw him riding in the Park with the Earl of Kew, and Captain 
Belsize, and a whole lot of ’em — I know ’em all — and he’d hardly 
nod to me. I’ll have a horse next Sunday, and then I’ll see 
whether he’ll cut me or not. Confound his airs ! For all he’s 
such a count, I know he’s got an aunt who lets lodgings at 
Brighton, and an uncle who’ll be preaching in the Bench if he don’t 
keep a precious good look-out.” 

“Newcome is not a bit of a count,” answers Moss’s companion 


212 


THE NEWCOMES 


indignantly. “ He don’t care a straw whether a fellow’s poor or 
rich ; and he comes up to my room just as willingly as he would 
go to a Duke’s. He is always trying to do a friend a good turn. 
He draws the figure capitally : he looks proud, but he isn’t, and 
is the best-natured fellow I ever saw.” 

“He ain’t been in our place this eighteen months,” says Mr. 
Moss, “ I know that.” 

“Because when he came you were always screwing him with 
some bargain or other,” cried the intrepid Hicks, Mr. Moss’s com- 
panion for the moment. “He said he couldn’t afford to know 
you : you never let him out of your house without a pin, or a box 
of eau-de-cologne, or a bundle of cigars. And when you cut the 
arts for the shop, how were you and Newcome to go on together, I 
should like to know 1 ” 

“I know a relative of his who comes to our ’ouse every. three 
months, to renew a little bill,” says Mr. Moss, with a grin: “and 
I know this, if I go to the Earl of Kew in the Albany, or the 
Honourable Captain Belsize, Knightsbridge Barracks, they let me 
in soon enough. I’m told his father ain’t got much money.” 

“ How the deuce should I know 'l or what do I care 'i ” cries 
the young artist, stamping the heel of his Blucher on the pavement. 
“When I was sick in that confounded Clipstone Street, I know 
the Colonel came to see me, and Newcome too, day after day, and 
night after night. And when I was getting well, they sent me 
wine and jelly, and all sorts of jolly things. I should like to know 
how often you came to see me, Moss, and what you did for a 
fellow 'l ” 

“Well, I kep’ away because I thought you wouldn’t like to 
be reminded of that two pound three you owe me, Hicks; that’s 
why I kep’ away,” says Mr. Moss, who, I dare say, was good- 
natured too. And when young Moss appeared at the billiard-room 
that night, it was evident that Hicks had told the story ; for the 
Wardour Street youth was saluted with a roar of queries, “ How 
about that two pound three that Hicks owes you ? ” 

The artless conversation of the two youths will enable us to 
understand how our hero’s life was speeding. Connected in one 
way or another with persons in all ranks, it never entered his head 
to be ashamed of the profession which he had chosen. People in 
the great world did not in the least trouble themselves regarding 
him, or care to know whether Mr. Clive Newcome followed painting 
or any other pursuit ; and though Clive saw many of his school- 
fellows in the world, these entering into the army, others talking 
with delight of college, and its pleasures or studies; yet, having 
made up his mind that art was his calling, he refused to quit her 


THE NEWCOMES 


21 3 


for any other mistress, and plied his easel very stoutly. He passed 
through the course of study prescribed by Mr. Gandish, and drew 
every cast and statue in that gentleman’s studio. Grindley, his 
tutor, getting a curacy, Clive did not replace him ; but he took 
a course of modern languages, which he learned with considerable 
aptitude and rapidity. And now, being strong enough to paint 
without a master, it was found that there was no good light in the 
house in Fitzroy Square ; and Mr. Clive must needs have an atelier 
hard by, where he could pursue his own devices independently. 

If his kind father felt any pang even at this temporary parting, 
he was greatly soothed and pleased by a little mark of attention on 
the young man’s part, of which his present biographer happened to 
be a witness; for, having walked over with Colonel Newcome to 
see the new studio, with its tall centre window, and its curtains, 
and carved wardrobes, china jars, pieces of armour, and other 
artistical properties, the lad, with a very sweet smile of kindness 
and affection lighting up his honest face, took one of two Bramah 
house-keys with which he was provided, and gave it to his father : 
“ That’s your key, sir,” he said to the Colonel : “ and you must 
be my first sitter, please, father ; for though I’m an historical 
painter, I shall condescend to do a few portraits, you know.” The 
Colonel took his son’s hand, and grasped it ; as Clive fondly put 
the other hand on his father’s shoulder. Then Colonel Newcome 
walked away into the next room for a minute or two, and came 
back wiping his mustachio with his handkerchief, and still holding 
the key in the other hand. He spoke about some trivial subject 
when he returned ; but his voice quite trembled ; and I thought 
his face seemed to glow with love and pleasure. Clive has never 
painted anything better than that head, which he executed in a 
couple of sittings; and wisely left without subjecting it to the 
chances of further labour. 

It is certain the young man worked much better after he had 
been inducted into this apartment of his own. And the meals at 
home were gayer ; and the rides with his father more frequent and 
agreeable. The Colonel used his key once or twice, and found 
Clive and his friend Ridley engaged in depicting a Life Guardsman, 
or a muscular negro, or a Malay from a neighbouring crossing, who 
would appear as Othello ; conversing with a Clipstone Street nymph, 
who was ready to represent Desdemona, Diana, Queen Eleanor 
(sucking poison from the arm of the Plantagenet of the Blues), or 
any other model of virgin or maiden excellence. 

Of course our young man commenced as an historical painter, 
deeming that the highest branch of art ; and declining (except for 
preparatory studies) to operate on any but the largest canvases. 


214 


THE NEWCOMES 


He painted a prodigious battle-piece of Assaye, with General 
Wellesley at the head of the 19th Dragoons charging the Mahratta 
Artillery, and sabring them at their guns. A piece of ordnance 
was dragged into the back-yard, and the Colonel’s stud put into 
requisition to supply studies for this enormous picture. Fred 
Bay ham (a stunning likeness) appeared as the principal figure in 
the foreground, terrifically wounded, but still of undaunted courage, 
slashing about amidst a group of writhing Malays, and bestriding 
the body of a dead cab-horse, which Clive painted, until the land- 
lady and rest of the lodgers cried out, and, for sanitary reasons, 
the knackers removed the slaughtered charger. So large was this 
picture that it could only be got out of the great window by means 
of artifice and coaxing, and its transport caused a shout of triumph 
among the little boys in Charlotte Street. Will it be believed 
that the Royal Academicians rejected “ The Battle of Assaye ” 1 
The masterpiece was so big that Fitzroy Square could not hold it ; 
and the Colonel had thoughts of presenting it to the Oriental Club ; 
but Clive (who had taken a trip to Paris with his father, as a 
delassement after the fatigues incident on this great work), when 
he saw it, after a month’s interval, declared the thing was rubbish, 
and massacred Britons, Malays, Dragoons, Artillery, and all. 

“Hotel de la Terrasse, Rue de Rivoli 
“ April 27 — May l , 183-. 

“My dear Pendennis, — You said I might write you a line 
from Paris ; and if you find in my correspondence any valuable 
hints for the Pall Mall Gazette , you are welcome to use them gratis. 
Now I am here, I wonder I have never been here before, and that I 
have seen the Dieppe packet a thousand times at Brighton pier 
without thinking of going on board her. We had a rough little 
passage to Boulogne. We went into action as we cleared Dover 
pier — when the first gun was fired, and a stout old lady was carried 
off by a steward to the cabin ; half-a-dozen more dropped immedi- 
ately, and the crew bustled about, bringing basins for the wounded. 
The Colonel smiled as he saw them fall. ‘ I’m an old sailor,’ says 
he to a gentleman on board. ‘ As I was coming home, sir, and we 
had plenty of rough weather on the voyage, I never thought of 
being unwell. My boy here, who made the voyage twelve years ago 
last May, may have lost his sea-legs ; but for me, sir — ’ Here a 
great wave dashed over the three of us — and, would you believe it, 
in five minutes after the dear old governor was as ill as all the rest 
of the passengers ! When we arrived, we went through a line of 
ropes to the custom-house, with a crowd of snobs jeering at us on 
each side, and then were carried off by a bawling commissioner to 


THE NEWCOMES 


215 


an hotel, where the Colonel, who speaks French beautifully, you 
know, told the waiter to get us a petit dejeuner soigne ; on which 
the fellow, grinning, said, c A nice fried sole, sir, — nice mutton-chop, 
sir,’ in regular Temple Bar English, and brought us Harvey sauce 
with the chops, and the last Bell's Life to amuse us after our 
luncheon. I wondered if all the Frenchmen read Bell's Life , and if 
all the inns smell so of brandy-and-water. 

“We walked out to see the town, which I dare say you know, 
and therefore shan’t describe. We saw some good studies of fish- 
women with bare legs, and remarked that the soldiers were very 
dumpy and small. We were glad when the time came to set off by 
the diligence ; and having the coupe to ourselves, made a very com- 
fortable journey to Paris. It was jolly to hear the postillions crying 
to their horses, and the bells of the team, and to feel ourselves 
really in France. We took in provender at Abbeville and Amiens, 
and were comfortably landed here after about six-and-twenty hours 
of coaching. Didn’t I get up the next morning, and have a good 
walk in the Tuileries ! The chestnuts were out, and the statues 
all shining, and all the windows of the palace in a blaze. It looks 
big enough for the king of the giants to live in. How grand it is ! 
I like the barbarous splendour of the architecture, and the orna- 
ments, profuse and enormous, with which it is overladen. Think 
of Louis XVI., with a thousand gentlemen at his back, and a mob of 
yelling ruffians in front of him, giving up his crown without a fight 
for it, leaving his friends to be butchered, and himself sneaking into 
prison ! No end of little children were skipping and playing in the 
sunshiny walks, with dresses as bright and cheeks as red as the 
flowers and roses on the parterres. I couldn’t help thinking of 
Barbaroux and his bloody pikemen swarming in the gardens, and 
fancied the Swiss in the windows yonder, where they were to be 
slaughtered when the King had turned his back. What a great 
man that Carlyle is ! I have read the battle in his ‘ History ’ so 
often, that I knew it before I had seen it. Our windows look out 
on the obelisk where the guillotine stood. The Colonel doesn’t 
admire Carlyle. He says Mrs. Graham’s 1 Letters from Paris ’ are 
excellent, and we brought Scott’s ‘ Visit to Paris,’ and ‘ Paris Re- 
visited,’ and read them in the diligence. They are famous good 
reading; but the Palais Royal is very much altered since Scott’s 
time ; no end of handsome shops. I went there directly, — the same 
night we arrived, when the Colonel went to bed. But there is none 
of the fun going on which Scott describes. The. laquais de place 
says Charles X. put an end to it all. 

“ Next morning the governor had letters to deliver after break- 
fast, and left me at the Louvre door. I shall come and live here, I 


216 


THE NEWCOMES 


think. I feel as if I never want to go away. I had not been ten 
minutes in the place before I fell in love with the most beautiful 
creature the world has ever seen. She was standing, silent and 
majestic, in the centre of one of the rooms of the statue gallery, and 
the very first glimpse of her struck one breathless with the sense of 
her beauty. I could not see the colour of her eyes and hair exactly, 
but the latter is light, and the eyes, I should think, are grey. Her 
complexion is of a beautiful warm marble tinge. She is not a 
clever woman, evidently ; I do not think she laughs or talks much 
— she seems too lazy to do more than smile. She is only beautiful. 
This divine creature has lost her arms, which have been cut off at 
the shoulders, but she looks none the less lovely for the accident. 
She may be some two-and-thirty years old, and she was born 
about two thousand years ago. Her name is the Venus of Milo. 

0 Victrix ! 0 lucky Paris ! (I don’t mean this present Lutetia, 

but Priam’s son.) How could he give the apple to any else but 
this enslaver, — this joy of gods and men ? at whose benign presence 
the flowers spring up, and the smiling ocean sparkles, and the soft 
skies beam with serene light ! I wish we might sacrifice. I would 
bring a spotless kid, snowy-coated, and a pair of doves, and a jar 
of honey — yea, honey from Morel’s in Piccadilly, thyme- flavoured 
Narbonian, and we would acknowledge the Sovereign Loveliness, 
and adjure the Divine Aphrodite. Did you ever see my pretty 
young cousin, Miss Newcome, Sir Brian’s daughter? She has a 
great look of the huntress Diana. It is sometimes too proud and too 
cold for me. The blare of those horns is too shrill, and the rapid 
pursuit through bush and bramble too daring. 0 thou generous 
Venus ! 0 thou beautiful, bountiful calm ! At thy soft feet let 

me kneel — on cushions of Tyrian purple. Don’t show this to 
Warrington, please ; I never thought when I began that Pegasus 
was going to run away with me. 

“ I wish I had read Greek a little more at school : it’s too late 
at my age ; I shall be nineteen soon, and have got my own business ; 
but when we return I think I shall try and read it with cribs. 
What have I been doing, spending six months over a picture of 
Sepoys and Dragoons cutting each other’s throats ! Art ought not 
to be a fever. It ought to be a calm ; not a screaming bull-fight or 
a battle of gladiators, but a temple for placid contemplation, rapt 
worship, stately rhythmic ceremony, and music solemn and tender. 

1 shall take down my Snyders and Rubens, when I get home ; and 
turn quietist. To think I have spent weeks in depicting bony Life 
Guardsmen delivering cut one, or Saint George, and painting black 
beggars off a crossing ! 

“ What a grand thing it is to think of half a mile of pictures at 


THE NEWCOMES 


217 


the Louvre f Not but that there are a score under the old pepper- 
boxes in Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here. I don’t care 
for any Raphael here as much as our own St. Catherine. There is 
nothing more grand. Could the pyramids of Egypt or the Colossus 
of Rhodes be greater than our Sebastian? And for our Bacchus 
and Ariadne, you cannot beat the best, you know. But if we have 
fine jewels, here there are whole sets of them : there are kings and 
all their splendid courts round about them. J. J. and I must come 
and live here. Oh, such portraits of Titian ! Oh, such swells by Van- 
dyke ! I’m sure he must have been as fine a gentleman as any he 
painted ! It’s a shame they haven’t got a Sir Joshua or two. At a 
feast of painters he has a right to a place, and at the high table too. 
Do you remember Tom Rogers, of Gandish’s ? He used to come to 
my rooms — my other rooms in the Square. Tom is here with a fine 
carroty beard, and a velvet jacket cut open at the sleeves to show 
that Tom has a shirt. I daresay it was clean last Sunday. He 
has not learnt French yet, but pretends to have forgotten English ; 
and promises to introduce me to a set of the French artists his 
camarades. There seems to be a scarcity of soap among these 
young fellows; and I think I shall cut off my mustachios, only 
Warrington will have nothing to laugh at when I come home. 

“ The Colonel and I went to dine at the Caft) de Paris, and 
afterwards to the opera. Ask for huitres de Marennes when you 
dine here. We dined with a tremendous French swell, the Vicomte 
de Florae, officier d’ordonnance to one of the princes, and son of 
some old friends of my father’s. They are of very high birth, but 
very poor. He will be a duke when his cousin, the Due d’lvry, 
dies. His father is quite old. The Vicomte was born in England. 
He pointed out to us no end of famous people at the opera — a 
few of the Faubourg St. Germain, and ever so many of the present 
people M. Thiers, and Count Mole, and George Sand, and Victor 
Hugo, and Jules Janin — I forget half their names. And yester- 
day we went to see his mother, Madame de Florae. I suppose 
she was an old flame of the Colonel’s, for their meeting was un- 
commonly ceremonious and tender. It was like an elderly Sir 
Charles Grandison saluting a middle-aged Miss Byron. And only 
fancy ! the Colonel has been here once before since his return to 
England ! It must have been last year, when he was away for 
ten days, whilst I was painting that rubbishing picture of the 
Black Prince waiting on King John. Madame de F. is a very grand 
lady, and must have been a great beauty in her time. There are 
two pictures by Gerard in her salon — of her and M. de Florae. 
M. de Florae old swell, powder thick eyebrows, hooked nose ; no end 
of stars, ribands, and embroidery. Madame also in the dress of the 


218 


THE NEWCOMES 


Empire — pensive, beautiful, black velvet, and a look something like 
my cousin’s. She wore a little old-fashioned brooch yesterday, and 
said, ‘ Voila la reconnaissez-vous ? Last year, when you were here, 
it was in the country.’ And she smiled at him ; and the dear old 
boy gave a sort of groan and dropped his head in his hand. I know 
what it is. I’ve gone through it myself. I kept for six months an 
absurd riband of that infernal little flirt Fanny Freeman. Don’t 
you remember how angry I was when you abused her ? 

“ ‘ Your father and I knew each other when we were children, 
my friend,’ the Countess said to me (in the sweetest French accent). 
He was looking into the garden of the house where they, live, in 
the Rue Saint Dominique. ‘You must come and see me often, 
always. You remind me of him;’ and she added, with a very 
sweet, kind smile, ‘ Do you like best to think that he was better- 
looking than you, or that you excel him ? ’ I said I should like to 
be like him. But who is ? There are cleverer fellows, I dare say ; 
but where is there such a good one? I wonder whether he was 
very fond of Madame de Florae? The old Count doesn’t show. 
He is quite old, and wears a pigtail. We saw it bobbing over his 
garden chair. He lets the upper part of his house ; Major-General 
the Honourable Zeno F. Pokey, of Cincinnati, U.S., lives in it. 
We saw Mrs. Pokey’s carriage in the court, and her footmen 
smoking cigars there ; a tottering old man with feeble legs, as old 
as old Count de Florae, seemed to be the only domestic who waited 
on the family below. 

“ Madame de Florae and my father talked about my profession. 
The Countess said it was a belle carriere. The Colonel said it 
was better than the army. 1 Ah oui, monsieur,’ says she, very 
sadly. And then he said, ‘ that presently I should very likely 
come to study at Paris, when he knew there would be a kind 
friend to watch over son g argon’ 

“ ‘ But you will be here to watch over him yourself, mon 
ami ? ’ says the French lady. 

“Father shook his head. ‘I shall very probably have to go 
back to India,’ he said. ‘My furlough is expired. I am now 
taking my extra leave. If I can get my promotion, I need not 
return. Without that I cannot afford to live in Europe. But my 
absence, in all probability, will be but very short,’ he said. ‘And 
Clive is old enough now to go on without me.’ 

“Is this the reason why father has been so gloomy for some 
months past? I thought it might have been some of my follies 
which made him uncomfortable ; and, you know, I have been 
trying my best to amend — I have not half such a tailor’s bill this 
year as last. I owe scarcely anything. I have paid off Moss 


THE NEWCOMES 


219 

every halfpenny for his confounded rings and gim cracks. I asked 
father about this melancholy news as we walked away from 
Madame de Florae. 

“He is not near so rich as we thought. Since he has been 
at home he says he has spent greatly more than his income, and 
is quite angry at his own extravagance. At first he thought he 
might have retired from the army altogether; but after three 
years at home, he finds he cannot live upon his income. When 
he gets his promotion as full Colonel, he will be entitled to a 
thousand a year; that, and what he has invested in India, and a 
little in this country, will be plenty for both of us. He never 
seems to think of my making money by my profession. Why, 
suppose I sell the ‘Battle of Assaye’ for £5001 that will be 
enough to carry me on ever so long, without dipping into the 
purse of the dear old father. 

“ The Viscount de Florae called to dine with us. The Colonel 
said he did not care about going out : and so the Viscount and 
I went together, — Trois Frkres Proven^aux. He ordered the 
dinner, and of course I paid. Then we went to a little theatre, 
and he took me behind the scenes — such a queer place ! We 
went to the loge of Mademoiselle Finette, who acted the part of 
‘Le petit Tambour,’ in which she sings a famous song with a 
drum. He asked her and several literary fellows to supper at 
the Cafd Anglais. And I came home ever so late, and lost twenty 
napoleons at a game called Bouillotte. It was all the change 
out of a tw r enty-pound note which dear old Binnie gave me before 
we set out, with a quotation out of Horace, you know, about 
Neque tu choreas sperne , puer. Oh me ! how guilty I felt as I 
walked home at ever so much o’clock to the ‘ Hotel de la Terrasse,’ 
and sneaked into our apartment ! But the Colonel was sound 
asleep. His dear old boots stood sentries at his bedroom door, 
and I slunk into mine as silently as I could. 

“ P.S . — Wednesday. — There’s just one scrap of paper left. I 
have got J. J.’s letter. He has been to the private view of the 
Academy (so that his own picture is in), and the ‘ Battle of Assaye ’ 
is refused. Smee told him it was too big. I dare say it’s very 
bad. I’m glad I’m away, and the fellows are not condoling 
with me 

“Please go and see Mr. Binnie. He has come to grief. He 
rode the Colonel’s horse ; came down on the pavement and wrenched 
his leg, and I’m afraid the grey’s. Please look at his legs; we 
can’t understand John’s report of them. He, I mean Mr. B., 
was going to Scotland to see his relations when the accident 
happened. You know he has always been going to Scotland to 


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see his relations. He makes light of the business, and says the 
Colonel is not to think of coming to him ; and / don’t want to 
go back just yet, to see all the fellows from Gandish’s and the 
Life Academy, and have them grinning at my misfortune. 

“ The governor would send his regards, I dare say, but he is out; 
and I am always yours affectionately, Clive Newcome. 

“ P.S. — He tipped me himself this morning ; isn’t he a kind, 
dear old fellow 1 ” 

ARTHUR PENDENNIS, ESQ., TO CLIVE NEWCOME, ESQ. 

“ Pall Mall Gazette , Journal of Politics, Literature, and Fashion , 
‘ ' 225 Catherine Street, Strand. 

“ Dear Clive, — I regret very much for Fred Bayham’s sake 
(who has lately taken the responsible office of Fine Arts Critic for 
the P. G.) that your extensive picture of the ‘ Battle of Assaye ’ has 
not found a place in the Royal Academy Exhibition. F. B. is at 
least fifteen shillings out of pocket by its rejection, as he had pre- 
pared a flaming eulogium of your work, which, of course, is so much 
waste paper in consequence of this calamity. Never mind. Courage, 
my son ! The Duke of Wellington, you know, was beat back at 
Seringapatam before he succeeded at Assaye. I hope you will fight 
other battles, and that fortune in future years will be more favour- 
able to you. The town does not talk very much of your discomfiture. 
You see the parliamentary debates are very interesting just now, 
and somehow the ‘ Battle of Assaye ’ does not seem to excite the 
public mind. 

“ I have been to Fitzroy Square ; both to the stables and the 
house. The Houyhnhnm’s legs are very well ; the horse slipped on 
his side and not on his knees, and has received no sort of injury. 
Not so Mr. Binnie, his ankle is much wrenched and inflamed. He 
must keep his sofa for many days, perhaps weeks. But you know 
he is a very cheerful philosopher, and endures the evils of life with 
much equanimity. His sister has come to him. I don’t know 
whether that may be considered as a consolation of his evil or an 
aggravation of it. You know he uses the sarcastic method in his 
talk, and it was difficult to understand from him whether he was 
pleased or bored by the embraces of his relative. She was an infant 
when he last beheld her, on his departure to India. She is now (to 
speak with respect) a very brisk, plump, pretty little widow; having, 
seemingly, recovered from her grief at the death of her husband, 
Captain Mackenzie, in the West Indies. Mr. Binnie was just on 
the point of visiting his relatives, who reside at Musselburgh, near 


THE NEW COMES 


221 


Edinburgh, when he met with the fatal accident which prevented 
his visit to his native shores. His account of his misfortune and 
his lonely condition was so pathetic that Mrs. Mackenzie and her 
daughter put themselves into the Edinburgh steamer, and rushed to 
console his sofa. They occupy your bedroom and sitting-room, which 
latter Mrs. Mackenzie says no longer smells of tobacco smoke, as it 
did when she took possession of your den. If you have left any 
papers about, any bills, any billets-doux, I make no doubt the ladies 
have read every single one of them, according to the amiable habits 
of their sex. The daughter is a bright little blue-eyed, fair-haired 
lass, with a very sweet voice, in which she sings (unaided by instru- 
mental music, and seated on a chair in the middle of the room) the 
artless ballads of her native country. I had the pleasure of hearing 
the ‘ Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee ’ and ‘ Jock of Hazeldean ’ from her 
ruby lips two evenings since ; not, indeed, for the first time in my 
life, but never from such a pretty little singer. Though both ladies 
speak our language with something of the tone usually employed 
by the inhabitants of the northern part of Britain, their accent is 
exceedingly pleasant, and indeed by no means so strong as Mr. 
Binnie’s own ; for Captain Mackenzie was an Englishman, for whose 
sake his lady modified her native Musselburgh pronunciation. She 
tells many interesting anecdotes of him, of the West Indies, and of 
the distinguished regiment of Infantry to which the Captain belonged. 
Miss Bosa is a great favourite with her uncle, and I have had the 
good fortune to make their stay in the metropolis more pleasant, by 
sending them orders, from the Pall Mall Gazette , for the theatres, 
panoramas, and the principal sights in town. For pictures they do 
not seem to care much ; they thought the National Gallery a dreary 
exhibition, and in the Royal Academy could be got to admire nothing 
but the picture of M‘Collop of M‘Collop, by our friend of the like 
name ; but they think Madame Tussaud’s interesting exhibition 
of Waxwork the most delightful in London ; and there I had the 
happiness of introducing them to our friend Mr. Frederick Bayham ; 
who, subsequently, on coming to this office with his valuable contri- 
butions on the Fine Arts, made particular inquiries as to their 
pecuniary means, and expressed himself instantly ready to bestow 
his hand upon the mother or daughter, provided old Mr. Binnie 
would make a satisfactory settlement. I got the ladies a box at 
the opera, whither they were attended by Captain Goby of their 
regiment, godfather to miss, and where I had the honour of paying 
them a visit. I saw your fair young cousin Miss Newcome in the 
lobby with her grandmamma, Lady Kew. Mr. Bayham with great 
eloquence pointed out to the Scotch ladies the various distinguished 
characters in the house. The opera delighted them, but they were 


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astounded at the ballet, from which mother and daughter retreated 
in the midst of a fire of pleasantries of Captain Goby. I can fancy 
that officer at mess, and how brilliant his anecdotes must have been 
when the company of ladies does not restrain his genial flow of 
humour. 

“ Here conies Mr. Baker with the proofs. In case you don’t see 
the P. G. at Galignani’s, I send you an extract from Bayham’s 
article on the Royal Academy, where you will have the benefit of 
his opinion on the works of some of your friends : — 

“ ‘ 617. “ Moses Bringing Home the Gross of Green Spectacles.” 
Smith, R.A. — Perhaps poor Goldsmith’s exquisite little work has 
never been so great a favourite as in the present age. We have 
here, in a work by one of our most eminent artists, an homage to 
the genius of him “ who touched nothing which he did not adorn ” : 
and the charming subject is handled in the most delicious manner 
by Mr. Smith. The chiaroscuro is admirable : the impasto is per- 
fect. Perhaps a very captious critic might object to the fore- 
shortening of Moses’s left leg ; but where there is so much to praise 
justly, the Pall Mall Gazette does not care to condemn. 

“‘420. Our (and the public’s) favourite, Brown, R.A., treats 
us to a subject from the best of all stories, the tale “ which laughed 
Spain’s chivalry away,” the ever-new “ Don Quixote.” The incident 
which Brown has selected is the “Don’s Attack on the Flock of 
Sheep ” ; the sheep are in his best manner, painted with all his 
well-known facility and brio. Mr. Brown’s friendly rival, Hopkins, 
has selected “ Gil Bias ” for an illustration this year ; and the 
“ Robbers’ Cavern ” is one of the most masterly of Hopkins’s pro- 
ductions. 

“ ‘ Great Rooms. 33. “ Portrait of Cardinal Cospetto.” O’Gog- 
stay, A.R.A. ; and “Neighbourhood of Corpodibacco — Evening — a 
Contadina and a Trasteverino dancing at the door of a Locanda to 
the music of a Pifferaro.” — Since his visit to Italy Mr. O’Gogstay 
seems to have given up the scenes of Irish humour with which he 
used to delight us; and the romance, the poetry, the religion of 
“ Italia la bella” form the subjects of his pencil. The scene near 
Corpodibacco (we know the spot well, and have spent many a happy 
month in its romantic mountains) is most characteristic. Cardinal 
Cospetto, we must say, is a most truculent prelate, and not certainly 
an ornament to his church. 

“‘49, 210, 311. Smee, R.A. — Portraits which a Reynolds 
might be proud of ; a Vandyke or a Claude might not disown. 
“ Sir Brian Newcome, in the costume of a Deputy-Lieutenant,” 

‘ Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B.,” painted for the 50th 


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223 


Dragoons, are triumphs, indeed, of this noble painter. Why have 
we no picture of the Sovereign and his august consort from Smee’s 
brush? When Charles II. picked up Titian’s mahl-stick, he ob- 
served to a courtier, “ A king you can always have ; a genius comes 
but rarely.” While we have a Smee among us, and a monarch 
whom we admire — may the one be employed to transmit to posterity 
the beloved features of the other ! We know our lucubrations are 
read in high places, and respectfully insinuate verbum sapienti. 

“‘1906. “The M‘Collop of M‘Collop,” — A. M‘Collop,— is a 
noble work of a young artist, who, in depicting the gallant chief of 
a hardy Scottish clan, has also represented a romantic Highland 
landscape, in the midst of which, “ his foot upon his native heath,” 
stands a man of splendid symmetrical figure and great facial advan- 
tages. We shall keep our eye on Mr. M‘Collop. 

“‘1367. “Oberon and Titania.” Ridley. — This sweet and 
fanciful little picture draws crowds round about it, and is one of 
the most charming and delightful works of the present exhibition. 
We echo the universal opinion in declaring that it shows not only 
the greatest promise, but the most delicate and beautiful perform- 
ance. The Earl of Kew, we understand, bought the picture at the 
private view ; and we congratulate the young painter heartily upon 
his successful debut. He is, we understand, a pupil of Mr. Gandisli. 
Where is that admirable painter? We miss his bold canvases and 
grand historic outline.’ 

“I shall alter a few inaccuracies in the composition of our 
friend F. B., who has, as he says, ‘drawn it uncommonly mild in 
the above criticism.’ In fact, two days since, he brought in an 
article of quite a different tendency, of which he retains only the 
two last paragraphs ; but he has, with great magnanimity, recalled 
his previous observations; and, indeed, he knows as much about 
pictures as some critics I could name. 

“ Good-bye, my dear Clive ! I send my kindest regards to your 
father; and think you had best see as little as possible of your 
bouillotte-playing French friend and his friends. This advice I know 
you will follow, as young men always follow the advice of their 
seniors and well-wishers. I dine in Fitzroy Square to-day with the 
pretty widow and her daughter, and am yours always, dear Clive, 

“A. P.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 

IN WHICH WE HEAR A SOPRANO AND A CONTRALTO 


T HE most hospitable and polite of Colonels would not hear 
of Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter quitting his house when 
he returned to it, after six weeks’ pleasant sojourn in Paris ; 
nor, indeed, did his fair guest show the least anxiety or intention 
to go away. Mrs. Mackenzie had a fine merry humour of her own. 
She was an old soldier’s wife, she said, and knew when her quarters 
were good ; and I suppose, since her honeymoon, when the Captain 
took her to Harrowgate and Cheltenham, stopping at the first 
hotels, and travelling in a chaise and pair the whole way, she had 
never been so well off as in that roomy mansion near Tottenham 
Court Road. Of her mother’s house at Musselburgh she gave a 
ludicrous but dismal account. “ Eh, James,” she said, “ I think 
if you had come to mamma, as you threatened, you would not have 
stayed very long. It’s a wearisome place. Dr. M‘Craw boards 
with her; and it’s sermons and psalm-singing from morning till 
night. My little Josey takes kindly to the life there, and I left 
her behind, poor little darling ! It was not fair to bring three of 
us to take possession of your house, dear James ; but my poor 
little Rosey was just withering away there. It’s good for the dear 
child to see the world a little, and a kind uncle, who is not afraid of 
us now he sees us, is he?” Kind Uncle James was not at all afraid 
of little Rosey, whose pretty face and modest manners, and sweet 
songs, and blue eyes cheered and soothed the old bachelor. Nor was 
Rosey’s mother less agreeable and pleasant. She had married the 
Captain (it was a love-match, against the will of her parents, who 
had destined her to be the third wife of old Dr. M‘Mull) when very 
young. Many sorrows she had had, including poverty, the Captain’s 
imprisonment for debt, and his decease ; but she was of a gay and 
lightsome spirit. She was but three-and-thirty years old, and looked 
five-and-twenty. She was active, brisk, jovial, and alert; and so 
good-looking, that it was a wonder she had not taken a successor 
to Captain Mackenzie. James Binnie cautioned his friend the 
Colonel against the attractions of the buxom siren ; and laughingly 
would ask Clive how he would like Mrs. Mackenzie for a mamma w ? 


THE NEWOOMES 


225 


Colonel Newcome felt himself very much at ease regarding his 
future prospects. He was very glad that his friend James was 
reconciled to his family, and hinted to Clive that the late Captain 
Mackenzie’s extravagance had been the cause of the rupture between 
him and his brother-in-law, who had helped that prodigal Captain 
repeatedly during his life, and, in spite of family quarrels, had 
never ceased to act generously to his widowed sister and her family. 
“ But I think, Mr. Clive,” said he, “ that as Miss Rosa is very 
pretty, and you have a spare room at your studio, you had best 
take up your quarters in Charlotte Street as long as the ladies are 
living with us.” Clive was nothing loth to be independent ; but 
he showed himself to be a very good home-loving youth. He 
walked home to breakfast every morning, dined often, and spent 
the evenings with the family. Indeed, the house was a great deal 
more cheerful for the presence of the two pleasant ladies. Nothing 
could be prettier than to see them tripping downstairs together, 
mamma’s pretty arm round Rosey’s pretty waist. Mamma’s talk 
was perpetually of Rosey. That child was always gay, always 
good, always happy ! That darling girl woke with a smile on her 
face — it was sweet to see her ! Uncle James, in his dry way, said, 
he dared to say it was very pretty. “ Go away, you droll, dear old 
kind Uncle James!” Rosey’s mamma would cry out. “You old 
bachelors are wicked old things ! ” Uncle James used to kiss Rosey 
very kindly and pleasantly. She was as modest, as gentle, as eager 
to please Colonel Newcome as any little girl could be. It was 
pretty to see her tripping across the room with his coffee-cup, or 
peeling walnuts for him after dinner with her white plump little 
fingers. 

Mrs. Irons, the housekeeper, naturally detested Mrs. Mackenzie, 
and was jealous of her ; though the latter did everything to soothe 
and coax the governess of the two gentlemen’s establishment. She 
praised her dinners, delighted in her puddings, must beg Mrs. Irons 
to allow her to see one of those delicious puddings made, and to 
write the receipt for her, that Mrs. Mackenzie might use it when 
she was away. It was Mrs. Irons’s belief that Mrs. Mackenzie 
never intended to go away. “ She had no ideer of ladies, as were 
ladies, coming into her kitchen.” The maids vowed that they heard 
Miss Rosa crying, and mamma scolding in her bedroom, for all she 
was so soft-spoken. “How was that jug broke, and that chair 
smashed in the bedroom, that day there was such a awful row up 
there ■ 

Mrs. Mackenzie played admirably, in the old-fashioned way, 
dances, reels, and Scotch and Irish tunes, the former of which filled 
James Binnie’s soul with delectation. The good mother naturally 
8 p 


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desired that her darling should have a few good lessons on the piano 
while she was in London. Rosey was eternally strumming upon an 
instrument which had been taken upstairs for her special practice ; 
and the Colonel, who was always seeking to do harmless jobs of 
kindness for his friends, bethought him of little Miss Cann, the 
governess at Ridley’s, whom he recommended as an instructress. 
“ Anybody whom you recommend, I’m sure, dear Colonel, we shall 
like,” said Mrs. Mackenzie, who looked as black as thunder, and 
had probably intended to have Monsieur Quatremains or Signor 
Twankeydillo ; and the little governess came to her pupil. Mrs. 
Mackenzie treated her very gruffly and haughtily at first ; but as 
soon as she heard Miss Cann play, the widow was pacified — nay, 
charmed. Monsieur Quatremains charged a guinea for three-quarters 
of an hour ; while Miss Cann thankfully took five shillings for an 
hour and a half; and the difference of twenty lessons, for which 
dear Uncle James paid, went into Mrs. Mackenzie’s pocket, and 
thence probably on to her pretty shoulders and head in the shape 
of a fine silk dress and a beautiful French bonnet, “in which,” 
Captain Goby said, upon his life, “ she didn’t look twenty.” 

The little governess, trotting home after her lesson, would often 
look into Clive’s studio in Charlotte Street, where her two boys, as 
she called Clive and J. J., were at work each at his easel. Clive 
used to laugh, and tell us, wfflo joked him about the widow and her 
daughter, what Miss Cann said about them. Mrs. Mack was not 
all honey, it appeared. If Rosey played incorrectly, mamma flew 
at her with prodigious vehemence of language, and sometimes with 
a slap on poor Rosey’s back. She must make Rosey wear tight 
boots, and stamped on her little feet if they refused to enter into 
the slipper. I blush for the indiscretion of Miss Cann ; but she 
actually told J. J., that mamma insisted upon lacing her so tight, 
as nearly to choke the poor little lass. Rosey did not fight — Rosey 
always yielded ; and the scolding over and the tears dried, would 
come simpering downstairs, with mamma’s arm round her waist, and 
her pretty artless happy smile for the gentlemen below. Besides 
the Scottish songs without music, she sang ballads at the piano very 
sweetly. Mamma used to cry at these ditties. “ That child’s voice 
brings tears into my eyes, Mr. Newcome,” she would say. “ She 
has never known a moment’s sorrow yet ! Heaven grant, Heaven 
grant she may be happy ! But what shall I be when I lose her 1 ” 

“ Why, my dear, when ye lose Rosey, ye’ll console yourself with 
Josey,” says droll Mr. Binnie from the sofa, who perhaps saw the 
manoeuvre of the widow. 

The widow laughs heartily and really. She places a hand- 
kerchief over her mouth. She glances at her brother with a pair 


THE NEWCOMES 227 

of eyes full of knowing mischief. “Ah, dear James,” she says, 
“ you don’t know what it is to have a mother’s feelings.” 

“ I can partly understand them,” says James. “ Rosey, sing 
me that pretty little French song.” 

Mrs. Mackenzie’s attention to Clive was really quite affecting. 
If any of his friends came to the house, she took them aside and 
praised Clive to them. The Colonel she adored. She had never 
met with such a man or seen such a manner. The manners of the 
Bishop of Tobago were beautiful, and he certainly had one of the 
softest and finest hands in the world — but not finer than Colonel 
Newcome’s. “ Look at his foot ! ” (and she put out her own, which 
was uncommonly pretty, and suddenly withdrew it, with an arch 
glance, meant to represent a blush), “ my shoe would fit it ! When 
we were at Coventry Island, Sir Peregrine Blandy, who succeeded 
poor dear Sir Rawdon Crawley — I saw his dear boy was gazetted 
to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Guards last week — Sir Peregrine, 
who was one of the Prince of Wales’s most intimate friends, w T as 
always said to have the finest manner and presence of any man of 
his day, and very grand and noble he was ; but I don’t think he 
was equal to Colonel Newcome — I really don’t think so. Do you 
think so, Mr. Honeymanl What a charming discourse that was 
last Sunday ! I know there were two pair of eyes not dry in the 
church. I could not see the other people just for crying myself. 
Oh, but I wish we could have you at Musselburgh ! I was bred a 
Presbyterian of course ; but in much travelling through the world 
with my dear husband, I came to love his Church. At home we 
sit under Dr. M‘Craw, of course ; but he is so awfully long ! Four 
hours every Sunday at least, morning and afternoon ! It nearly 
kills poor Rosey. Did you hear her voice at your church ? The 
dear girl is delighted with the chants. Rosey, were you not 
delighted with the chants % ” 

If she is delighted with the chants, Honeyman is delighted with 
the chantress and her mamma. He dashes the fair hair from 
his brow ; he sits down to the piano, and plays one or two of 
them, warbling a faint vocal accompaniment, and looking as if 
he would be lifted off the screw music-stool, and flutter up to 
the ceiling. 

“ Oh, it’s just seraphic ! ” says the widow. “ It’s just the 
breath of incense, and the pealing of the organ at the Cathedral 
at Montreal. Rosey doesn’t remember Montreal. She was a wee, 
wee child. She was born on the voyage out, and christened at sea. 
You remember, Goby.” 

“ ’Gad, I promised and vowed to teach her her catechism ; but 
’gad, I haven’t,” says Captain Goby. “ We were between Montreal 


228 


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and Quebec for three years with the Hundredth, the Hundred 
and Twentieth Highlanders, and the Thirty- third Dragoon Guards 
a part of the time ; Fipley commanded them, and a very jolly 
time we had. Much better than the West Indies, where a fellow’s 
liver goes to the deuce with hot pickles and sangaree. Mackenzie 
was a dev’lish wild fellow,” whispers Captain Goby to his neighbour 
(the present biographer indeed), “and Mrs. Mack was — was as 
pretty a little woman as ever you set eyes on.” (Captain Goby 
winks, and looks peculiarly sly as he makes this statement.) “ Our 
regiment wasn’t on your side of India, Colonel.” 

And in the interchange of such delightful remarks, and with 
music and song, the evening passes away. “Since the house 
had been adorned by the fair presence of Mrs. Mackenzie and 
her daughter,” Honey man said, always gallant in behaviour and 
flowery in expression, “ it seemed as if spring had visited it. 
Its hospitality was invested with a new grace ; its ever welcome 
little reunions were doubly charming. But why did these ladies 
'come, if they were to go away again 1 How — how would Mr. 
Binnie console himself (not to mention others), if they left him in 
solitude 1 ” 

“We have no wish to leave my brother James in solitude,” 
cries Mrs. Mackenzie, frankly laughing. “We like London a great 
deal better than Musselburgh.” 

“ Oh, that we do ! ” ejaculates the blushing Rosey. 

“ And we will stay as long as ever my brother will keep us,” 
continues the widow. 

“ Uncle James is so kind and dear,” says Rosey. “ I hope he 
won’t send me and mamma away.” 

“ He were a brute — a savage, if he did ! ” cries Honeyman, 
with glances of rapture towards the two pretty faces. Everybody 
liked them. Binnie received their caresses very good-humouredly. 
The Colonel liked every woman under the sun. Clive laughed and 
joked and waltzed alternately with Rosey and her mamma. The 
latter was the brisker partner of the two. The unsuspicious 
widow, poor dear innocent, would leave her girl at the painting- 
room, and go shopping herself; but little J. J. also worked there, 
being occupied with his second picture ; and he was almost the 
only one of Clive’s friends whom the widow did not like. She 
pronounced the quiet little painter a pert little obtrusive, underbred 
creature. 

In a word, Mrs. Mackenzie was, as the phrase is, “ setting her 
cap” so openly at Clive, that none of us could avoid seeing her 
play; and Clive laughed at her simple manoeuvres as merrily as 
the rest. She was a merry little woman. We gave her and her 


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229 


pretty daughter a luncheon in Lamb Court, Temple ; in Sibwright’s 
chambers — luncheon from Dick’s Coffee-house — ices and dessert 
from Partington’s in the Strand. Miss Rosey, Mr. Sibwright, our 
neighbour in Lamb Court, and the Reverend Charles Honeyman 
sang very delightfully after lunch ; there was quite a crowd of 
porters, laundresses, and boys to listen in the Court ; Mr. Paley 
was disgusted with the noise we made — in fact, the party was 
perfectly successful. We all liked the widow, and if she did set 
her pretty ribands at Clive, why should not she 1 ? We all liked the 
pretty, fresh, modest Rosey. Why, even the grave old benchers in 
the Temple Church, when the ladies visited it on Sunday, winked 
their reverend eyes with pleasure, as they looked at those two un- 
commonly smart, pretty, well-dressed, fashionable women. Ladies, 
go to the Temple Church. You will see more young men, and 
receive more respectful attention there than in any place, except 
perhaps at Oxford or Cambridge. Go to the Temple Church — not, 
of course, for the admiration which you will excite and which you 
cannot help ; but because the sermon is excellent ; the choral 
services beautifully performed, and the church so interesting as a 
monument of the thirteenth century, and as it contains the tombs 
of those dear Knights Templars ! 

Mrs. Mackenzie could be grave or gay, according to her com- 
pany ; nor could any woman be of more edifying behaviour when an 
occasional Scottish friend, bringing a letter from darling Josey, or 
a recommendatory letter from Josey ’s grandmother, paid a visit in 
Fitzroy Square. Little Miss Cann used to laugh and wink know- 
ingly, saying, “ You will never get back your bedroom, Mr. Clive. 
You may be sure that Miss Josey will come in a few months ; and 
perhaps old Mrs. Binnie, only no doubt she and her daughter do 
not agree. But the widow has taken possession of Uncle James ; 
and she will carry off somebody else if I am not mistaken. Should 
you like a stepmother, Mr. Clive, or should you prefer a wife ? ” 

Whether the fair lady tried her wiles upon Colonel Newcome 
the present writer has no certain means of ascertaining; but I 
think another image occupied his heart : and this Circe tempted 
him no more than a score of other enchantresses who had tried 
their spells upon him. If she tried she failed. She was a very 
shrewd woman, quite frank in her talk when such frankness suited 
her. She said to me, “Colonel Newcome has had some great 
passion, once upon a time, I am sure of that, and has no more heart 
to give away. The woman who had his must have been a very 
lucky woman ; though I dare say she did not value what she had ; 
or did not live to enjoy it — or — or something or other. You see 
tragedies in some people’s faces. I recollect when we were in 


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Coventry Island — there was a chaplain there — a very good man — 
a Mr. Bell, and married to a pretty little woman who died. The 
first day I saw him I said, ‘ I know that man has had a great grief 
in life. I am sure that he left his heart in England.’ You gentle- 
men who write books, Mr. Pendennis, and stop at the third volume, 
know very well that the real story often begins afterwards. My 
third volume ended when I was sixteen, and was married to my 
poor husband. Do you think all our adventures ended then, and 
that we lived happy ever after ? I live for my darling girls now. 
All I want is to see them comfortable in life. Nothing can be 
more generous than my dear brother James has been. I am only 
his half-sister, you know, and was an infant in arms when he went 
away. He had differences with Captain Mackenzie, who was 
headstrong and imprudent, and I own my poor dear husband was 
in the wrong. James could not live with my poor mother. Neither 
could by possibility suit the other. I have often, I own, longed to 
come and keep house for him. His home, the society he sees, of 
men of talents like Mr. Warrington and — and I won’t mention 
names, or pay compliments to a man who knows human nature so 
well as the author of ‘ Walter Lorraine ’ : this house is pleasanter 
a thousand times than Musselburgh — pleasanter for me and my 
dearest Rosey, whose delicate nature shrunk and withered up in 
poor mamma’s society. She was never happy except in my room, 
the dear child ! She’s all gentleness and affection. She doesn’t 
seem to show it : but she has the most wonderful appreciation 
of wit, of genius, and talent of all kinds. She always hides her feel- 
ings, except from her fond old mother. I went up into our room 
yesterday, and found her in tears. I can’t bear to see her eyes 
red or to think of her suffering. I asked her what ailed her, and 
kissed her. She is a tender plant, Mr. Pendennis ! Heaven knows 
with what care I have nurtured her ! She looked up smiling on 
my shoulder. She looked so pretty ! ‘ Oh, mamma,’ .the darling 

child said, ‘ I couldn’t help it. I have been crying over “ Walter 
Lorraine ” ! ’ ” (Enter Rosey.) “ Rosey, darling ! I have been 
telling Mr. Pendennis what a naughty, naughty child you were 
yesterday, and how you read a book which I told you you shouldn’t 
read ; for it is a very wicked book ; and though it contains some 
sad, sad truths, it is a great deal too misanthropic (is that the 
right word % I’m a poor soldier’s wife, and no scholar, you know), 
and a great deal too bitter; and though the reviews praise it, 
and the clever people — we are poor simple country people — we 
won’t praise it. Sing, dearest, that little song ” (profuse kisses to 
Rosey) — “that pretty thing that Mr. Pendennis likes.” 

“ I am sure that I will sing anything that Mr. Pendennis likes,” 


THE NEWCOMES 


231 


says Rosey, with her candid bright eyes ; and she goes to the piano 
and warbles “ Batti, Batti,” with her sweet fresh artless voice. 

More caresses follow. Mamma is in a rapture. How pretty 
they look — the mother and daughter — two lilies twining together ! 
The necessity of an entertainment at the Temple — lunch from 
Dick’s (as before mentioned), dessert from Partington’s, Sibwright’s 
spoons, his boy to aid ours, nay, Sib himself, and his rooms, which 
are so much more elegant than ours, and where there is a piano, 
and a guitar : all these thoughts pass in rapid and brilliant com- 
bination in the pleased Mr. Pendennis’s mind. How delighted the 
ladies are with the proposal ! Mrs. Mackenzie claps her pretty 
hands, and kisses Rosey again. If osculation is a mark of love, 
surely Mrs. Mack is the best of mothers. I may say, without false 
modesty, that our little entertainment was most successful. The 
champagne was iced to a nicety. The ladies did not perceive that 
our laundress, Mrs. Flanagan, was intoxicated very early in the 
afternoon. Percy Sib wright sang admirably, and with the greatest 
spirit, ditties in many languages. I am sure Miss Rosey thought 
him (as indeed he is) one of the most fascinating young fellows 
about town. To her mother’s excellent accompaniment Rosey sang 
her favourite songs (by the way, her stock was very small — five, I 
think, was the number). Then the table was moved into a corner, 
where the quivering moulds of jelly seemed to keep time to the 
music; and whilst Percy played, two couple of waltzers actually 
whirled round the little room. No wonder that the court below 
was thronged with admirers, that Paley the reading man was in a 
rage, and Mrs. Flanagan in a state of excitement. Ah ! pleasant 
days, happy old dingy chambers illuminated by youthful sunshine ! 
merry songs and kind faces — it is pleasant to recall you. Some of 
those bright eyes shine no more : some of those smiling lips do not 
speak. Some are not less kind, but sadder than in those days : of 
which the memories revisit us for a moment, and sink back into the 
grey past. The dear old Colonel beat time with great delight to 
the songs ; the widow lit his cigar with her own fair fingers. That 
was the only smoke permitted during the entertainment — George 
Warrington himself not being allowed to use his cutty-pipe — though 
the gay little widow said that she had been used to smoking in 
the West Indies, and I dare say spoke the truth. Our entertain- 
ment lasted actually until after dark ; and a particularly neat cab 
being called from St. Clement’s by Mr. Binnie’s boy, you may be 
sure we all conducted the ladies to their vehicle; and many a 
fellow returning from his lonely club that evening into chambers 
must have envied us the pleasure of having received two such 
beauties. 


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The clerical bachelor was not to be outdone by the gentlemen 
of the bar ; and the entertainment at the Temple was followed by 
one at Honey man’s lodgings, which, I must own, greatly exceeded 
ours in splendour, for Honeyman had his luncheon from Gunter’s ; 
and if he had been Miss Rosey’s mother, giving a breakfast to the 
dear girl on her marriage, the affair could not have been more 
elegant and handsome. We had but two bouquets at our entertain- 
ment; at Honeyman’s there were four upon the breakfast-table, 
besides a great pineapple, which must have cost the rogue three 
or four guineas, and which Percy Sibwright delicately cut up. 
Rosey thought the pineapple delicious. “ The dear ' thing does 
not remember the pineapples in the West Indies ! ” cries Mrs. 
Mackenzie ; and she gave us many exciting narratives of entertain- 
ments at which she had been present at various colonial governors’ 
tables. After luncheon, our host hoped we should have a little 
music. Dancing, of course, could not be allowed. “That,” said 
Honeyman, with his “soft-bleating sigh,” “were scarcely clerical. 
You know, besides, you are in a hermitage ; and ” (with a glance 
round the table) “must put up with Cenobite’s fare.” The fare 
was, as I have said, excellent. The wine was bad, as George, and 
I, and Sib agreed ; and, in so far, we flattered ourselves that our 
feast altogether excelled the parson’s. The champagne especially 
was such stuff, that Warrington remarked on it to his neighbour, a 
dark gentleman, with a tuft to his chin, and splendid rings and 
chains. 

The dark gentleman’s wife and daughter were the other two 
ladies invited by our host. The elder was splendidly dressed. Poor 
Mrs. Mackenzie’s simple gimcracks, though she displayed them to 
the most advantage, and could make an ormolu bracelet go as far as 
another woman’s emerald clasps, were as nothing compared to the 
other lady’s gorgeous jewellery. Her fingers glittered with rings 
innumerable. The head of her smelling-bottle was as big as her 
husband’s gold snuffbox, and of the same splendid material. Our 
ladies, it must be confessed, came in a modest cab from Fitzroy 
Square ; these arrived in a splendid little open carriage with white 
ponies, and harness all over brass, which the lady of the rings drove 
with a whip that was a parasol. Mrs. Mackenzie, standing at 
Honeyman’s window, with her arm round Rosey’s waist, viewed 
this arrival perhaps with envy. “ My dear Mr. Honeyman, whose 
are those beautiful horses % ” cries Rosey, with enthusiasm. 

The divine says, with a faint blush, “It is — ah — it is Mrs. 
Sherrick and Miss Sherrick, who have done me the favour to come 
to luncheon.” 

“Wine merchant. Oh ! ” thinks Mrs. Mackenzie, who has seen 


THE NEWCOMES 


233 


Sherrick’s brass plate on the cellar door of Lady Whittlesea’s 
chapel ; and hence, perhaps, she was a trifle more magniloquent 
than usual, and entertained us with stories of colonial governors 
and their ladies, mentioning no persons but those who “ had handles 
to their names,” as the phrase is. 

Although Sherrick had actually supplied the champagne which 
Warrington abused to him in confidence, the wine merchant was not 
wounded ; on the contrary, he roared with laughter at the remark, 
and some of us smiled who understood the humour of the joke. As 
for George Warrington, he scarce knew more about the town than 
the ladies opposite to him, who, yet more innocent than George, 
thought the champagne very good. Mrs. Sherrick was silent during 
the meal, looking constantly up at her husband, as if alarmed and 
always in the habit of appealing to that gentleman, who gave her, 
as I thought, knowing glances and savage winks, which made me 
augur that he bullied her at home. Miss Sherrick was exceedingly 
handsome : she kept the fringed curtains of her eyes constantly 
down ; but when she lifted them up towards Clive, who was very 
attentive to her (the rogue never sees a handsome woman but to 
this day he continues the same practice) — when she looked up and 
smiled, she was indeed a beautiful young creature to behold, — with 
her pale forehead, her thick arched eyebrows, her rounded cheeks, 
and her full lips slightly shaded, — how shall I mention the word ? 
— slightly pencilled, after the manner of the lips of the French 
governess, Mademoiselle Lenoir. 

Percy Sibwright engaged Miss Mackenzie with his usual grace 
and affability. Mrs. Mackenzie did her very utmost to be gracious ; 
but it was evident the party was not altogether to her liking. Poor 
Percy, about whose means and expectations she had in the most 
natural way in the world asked information from me, was not 
perhaps a very eligible admirer for darling Rosey. She knew not 
that Percy can no more help gallantry than the sun can help 
shining. As soon as Rosey had done eating up her pineapple, art- 
lessly confessing (to Percy Sibwright’s inquiries) that she preferred 
it to the rasps and hinny blobs in her grandmamma’s garden, “Now, 
dearest Rosey,” cries Mrs. Mack, “now, a little song. You pro- 
mised Mr. Pendennis a little song.” Honeyman whisks open the 
piano in a moment. The widow takes off her cleaned gloves (Mrs. 
Sherrick’s were new, and of the best Paris make), and little Rosey 
sings No. 1, followed by No. 2, with very great applause. Mother 
and daughter entwine as they quit the piano. “ Brava ! brava ! ” 
says Percy Sibwright. Does Mr. Clive Newcome say nothing? 
His back is turned to the piano, and he is looking with all his 
might into the eyes of Miss Sherrick. 


234 


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Percy sings a Spanish seguidilla, or a German lied, or a French 
romance, or a Neapolitan canzonet, which, I am bound to say, 
excites very little attention. Mrs. Ridley is sending in coffee at 
this juncture, of which Mrs. Sherrick partakes, with lots of sugar, 
as she has partaken of numberless things before : chickens, plover’s 
eggs, prawns, aspics, jellies, creams, grapes, and what not. Mr. 
Honeyman advances, and with deep respect asks if Mrs. Sherrick 
and Miss Sherrick will not be persuaded to sing 1 ? She rises and 
bows, and again takes off the French gloves, and shows the large 
white hands glittering with rings, and, summoning Emily her 
daughter, they go to the piano. 

“Can she sing,” whispers Mrs. Mackenzie — “can she sing after 
eating so much 1 ” Can she sing, indeed ! 0 you poor ignorant 

Mrs. Mackenzie ! Why, when you were in the West Indies, if you 
ever read the English newspapers, you must have read of the fame 
of Miss Folthorpe. Mrs. Sherrick is no other than the famous 
artiste who, after three years of brilliant triumphs at the Scala, 
the Pergola, the San Carlo,, the opera in England, forsook her 
profession, rejected a hundred suitors, and married Sherrick, who 
was Mr. Cox’s lawyer, who failed, as everybody knows, as manager 
of Drury Lane. Sherrick, like a man of spirit, would not allow 
his wife to sing in public after his marriage ; but in private society, 
of course, she is welcome to perform ; and now with her daughter, 
who possesses a noble contralto voice, she takes her place royally 
at the piano, and the two sing so magnificently that everybody in 
the room, with one single exception, is charmed and delighted ; and 
little Miss Cann herself creeps up the stairs, and stands with Mrs. 
Ridley at the door to listen to the music. 

Miss Sherrick looks doubly handsome as she sings. Clive 
Newcome is in a rapture; so is good-natured Miss Rosey, whose 
little heart beats with pleasure, and who says quite unaffectedly to 
Miss Sherrick, with delight and gratitude beaming from her blue 
eyes, “ Why did you ask me to sing, when you sing so wonderfully, 
so beautifully, yourself*? Do not leave the piano, please — do sing 
again ! ” And she puts out a kind little hand towards the superior 
artiste, and, blushing, leads her back to the instrument. “I’m 
sure me and Emily will sing for you as much as you like, dear,” 
says Mrs. Sherrick, nodding to Rosey good-naturedly. Mrs. Mac- 
kenzie, who has been biting her lips and drumming the time on a 
side-table, forgets at last the pain of being vanquished in admiration 
of the conquerors. “ It was cruel of you not to tell us, Mr. Honey- 
man,” she says, “ of the — of the treat you had in store for us. I 
had no idea we were going to meet professional people; Mrs. 
Sherrick’s singing is indeed beautiful.” 



MR. HONE YM AN AT HOME 









THE NEWCOMES 


235 


“If you come up to our place in the Regent’s Park, Mr. 
Newcome,” Mr. Sherrick says, “Mrs. S. and Emily will give you 
as many songs as you like. How do you like the house in Fitzroy 
Square*? Anything wanting doing there? I’m a good landlord 
to a good tenant. Don’t care what I spend on my houses. Lose 
by ’em sometimes. Name a day when you’ll come to us ; and I’ll 
ask some good fellows to meet you. Your father and Mr. Binnie 
came once. That was when you were a young chap. They didn’t 
have a bad evening, I believe. You just come and try us — I can 
give you as good a glass of wine as most, I think,” and he smiles, 
perhaps thinking of the champagne which Mr. Warrington had 
slighted. “I’ve ’ad the close carriage for my wife this evening,” 
he continues, looking out of window at a very handsome brougham 
which has just drawn up there. “ That little pair of horses steps 
prettily together, don’t they? Fond of horses? I know you are. 
See you in the Park; and going by our house sometimes. The 
Colonel sits a horse uncommonly well ; so do you, Mr. Newcome. 
I’ve often said, ‘Why don’t they get off their horses and say, 
Sherrick, we’re come for a bit of lunch and a glass of sherry.’ 
Name a day, sir. Mr. P., will you be in it?” 

Clive Newcome named a day, and told his father of the circum- 
stance in the evening. The Colonel looked grave. “There was 
something which I did not quite like about Mr. Sherrick,” said that 
acute observer of human nature. “It was easy to see that the 
man is not quite a gentleman. I don’t care what a man’s trade is, 
Clive. Indeed, who are we, to give ourselves airs upon that subject ? 
But when I am gone, my boy, and there is nobody near you who 
knows the world as I do, you may fall into designing hands, and 
rogues may lead you into mischief; keep a sharp look-out, Clive. 
Mr. Pendennis, here, knows that there are designing fellows abroad ” 
(and the dear old gentleman gives a very knowing nod as he speaks). 
“When I am gone, keep the lad from harm’s way, Pendennis. 
Meanwhile Mr. Sherrick has been a very good and obliging landlord ; 
and a man who sells wine may certainly give a friend a bottle. I 
am glad you had a pleasant evening, boys. Ladies ! I hope you 
have had a pleasant afternoon. Miss Rosey, you are come back to 
make tea for the old gentlemen ? James begins to get about briskly 
now. He walked to Hanover Square, Mrs. Mackenzie, without 
hurting his ankle in the least.” 

“I am almost sorry that he is getting well,” says Mrs. Mac- 
kenzie sincerely. “ He won’t want us when he is quite cured.” 

“ Indeed, my dear creature ! ” cries the Colonel, taking her 
pretty hand and kissing it, “he will want you, and he shall want 
you. James no more knows the world than Miss Rosey here ; and 


236 


THE NEWCOMES 


if I had not been with him, would have been perfectly unable to 
take care of himself. When I am gone to India, somebody must 
stay with him ; and — and my boy must have a home to go to,” 
says the kind soldier, his voice dropping. “I had been in hopes 
that his own relatives would have received him more, but never 
mind about that,” he cried more cheerfully. “ Why, I may not be 
absent a year ! perhaps need not go at all — I am second for promo- 
tion. A couple of our old generals may drop any day ; and when 
I get my regiment, I come back to stay, to live at home. Mean- 
time, whilst I am gone, my dear lady, you will take care of James ; 
and you will be kind to my boy.” 

“ That I will ! ” said the widow, radiant with pleasure, and 
she took one of Clive’s hands and pressed it for an instant ; and 
from Clive’s father’s kind face there beamed out that benediction 
which always made his countenance appear to me among the most 
beautiful of human faces. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


IN WHICH THE NEW COME BROTHERS ONCE MORE MEET 
TOGETHER IN UNITY 

T HIS narrative, as the judicious reader no doubt is aware, 
is written maturely and at ease, long after the voyage is 
over whereof it recounts the adventures and perils ; the winds 
adverse and favourable ; the storms, shoals, shipwrecks, islands, 
and so forth, which Clive Newcome met in his early journey in 
life. In such a history events follow each other without necessarily 
having a connection with one another. One ship crosses another 
ship, and, after a visit from one captain to his comrade, they 
sail away each on his course. The Clive Newcome meets a vessel 
which makes signals that she is short of bread and water; and 
after supplying her, our captain leaves her to see her no more. 
One or two of the vessels with which we commenced the voyage 
together, part company in a gale, and founder miserably; others, 
after being woefully battered in the tempest, make port, or are 
cast upon surprising islands where all sorts of unlooked-for prosperity 
await the lucky crew. Also, no doubt, the writer of the book, 
into whose hands Clive Newcome’s logs have been put, and who is 
charged with the duty of making two octavo volumes out of his 
friend’s story, dresses up the narrative in his own way ; utters his 
own remarks in place of Newcome’s ; makes fanciful descriptions of 
individuals and incidents with which he never could have been 
personally acquainted ; and commits blunders, which the critics 
will discover. A great number of the descriptions in “Cook’s 
Voyages,” for instance, were notoriously invented by Dr. Hawkes- 
worth, who “did” the book: so in the present volumes where 
dialogues are written down which the reporter could by no 
possibility have heard, and where motives are detected which the 
persons actuated by them certainly never confided to the writer, 
the public must once for all be warned that the author’s individual 
fancy very likely supplies much of the narrative ; and that he forms 
it as best he may out of stray papers, conversations reported to 
him, and his knowledge, right or wrong, of the characters of the 
persons engaged. And, as is the case with the most orthodox 


238 


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histories, the writer’s own guesses or conjectures are printed in 
exactly the same type as the most ascertained patent facts. I 
fancy, for my part, that the speeches attributed to Clive, the 
Colonel, and the rest, are as authentic as the orations in Sallust or 
Livy, and only implore the truth-loving public to believe that 
incidents here told, and which passed very probably without wit- 
nesses, were either confided to me subsequently as compiler of this 
biography, or are of such a nature that they must have happened 
from what we know happened after. For example, when you read 
such words as QVE ROM AN VS on a battered Roman stone, your 
profound antiquarian knowledge enables you to assert that 
SEN AT VS POPVLVS was also inscribed there at some time or 
other. You take a mutilated statue of Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, or 
Virorum, and you pop on him a wanting hand, an absent foot, or 
a nose, which time or barbarians have defaced. You tell your tales 
as you can, and state the facts as you think they must have been. 
In this manner, Mr. James, Titus Livius, Sheriff Alison, Robinson 
Crusoe, and all historians proceeded. Blunders there must be in 
the best of these narratives, and more asserted than they can 
possibly know or vouch for. 

To recur to our own affairs, and the subject at present in hand. 
I am obliged here to supply from conjecture a few points of the 
history which I could not know from actual experience or hearsay. 
Clive, let us say, is Romanus, and we must add Senatus Populusque 
to his inscription. After Mrs. Mackenzie and her pretty daughter 
had been for a few months in London, which they did not think of 
quitting, although Mr. Binnie’s wounded little leg was now as well 
and as brisk as ever it had been, a redintegration of love began to 
take place between the Colonel and his relatives in Park Lane. 
How should we know that there had ever been a quarrel, or at any 
rate a coolness 1 Thomas Newcome was not a man to talk at length 
of any such matter ; though a word or two, occasionally dropped in 
conversation by the simple gentleman, might lead persons, who 
chose to interest themselves about his family affairs, to form their 
own opinions concerning them. After that visit of the Colonel and 
his son to Newcome, Ethel was constantly away with her grand- 
mother. The Colonel went to see his pretty little favourite at 
Brighton, and once, twice, thrice, Lady Kew’s door was denied to 
him. The knocker of that door could not be more fierce than the 
old lady’s countenance when Newcome met her in her chariot driving 
on the cliff. Once, forming the loveliest of a charming Amazonian 
squadron, led by Mr. Whiskin, the riding-master, when the Colonel 
encountered his pretty Ethel, she greeted him affectionately, it is 
true; there was still the sweet look of candour and love in her 


THE NEWCOMES 239 

eyes ; but when he rode up to her she looked so constrained, when 
he talked about Clive so reserved, when he left her so sad, that he 
could not but feel pain and commiseration. Back he went to 
London, having in a week only caught this single glance of his 
darling. 

This event occurred while Clive was painting his picture of the 
“ Battle of Assaye ” before mentioned, during the struggles incident 
on which composition he was not thinking much about Miss Ethel, 
or his papa, or any other subject but his great work. Whilst 
Assaye was still in progress Thomas Newcome must have had an 
explanation with his sister-in-law Lady Ann, to whom he frankly 
owned the hopes which he had entertained for Clive, and who must 
as frankly have told the Colonel that Ethel’s family had very 
different views for that young lady to those which the simple Colonel 
had formed. A generous early attachment, the Colonel thought, is 
the safeguard of a young man. To love a noble girl ; to wait awhile 
and struggle, and haply do some little achievement in order to win 
her; the best task to which his boy could set himself. If two 
young people so loving each other were to marry on rather narrow 
means, what then 1 ? A happy home was better than the finest 
house in Mayfair ; a generous young fellow, such as, please God, 
his son was — loyal, upright, and a gentleman — might pretend surely 
to his kinswoman’s hand without derogation ; and the affection he 
bore Ethel himself was so great, and the sweet regard with which 
she returned it, that the simple father thought his kindly project 
was favoured by Heaven, and prayed for its fulfilment, and pleased 
himself to think, when his campaigns were over, and his sword 
hung on the wall, what a beloved daughter he might have to soothe 
and cheer his old age. With such a wife for his son, and child for 
himself, he thought the happiness of his last years might repay him 
for friendless boyhood, lonely manhood, and cheerless exile ; and he 
imparted his simple scheme to Ethel’s mother, who, no doubt, was 
touched as he told his story ; for she always professed regard and 
respect for him, and in the differences which afterwards occurred 
in the family, and the quarrels which divided the brothers, still 
remained faithful to the good Colonel. 

But Barnes Newcome, Esquire, was the head of the house, 
and the governor of his father and all Sir Brian’s affairs ; and 
Barnes Newcome, Esquire, hated his cousin Clive, and spoke of 
him as a beggarly painter, an impudent snob, an infernal young 
puppy, and so forth ; and Barnes, with his usual freedom of lan- 
guage, imparted his opinions to his Uncle Hobson at the bank, 
and Uncle Hobson carried them home to Mrs. Newcome in Bryan- 
stone Square; and Mrs. Newcome took an early opportunity of 


240 


THE NEWCOMES 


telling the Colonel her opinion on the subject, and of bewailing 
that love for aristocracy which she saw actuated some folks; and 
the Colonel was brought to see that Barnes was his boy’s enemy, 
and words very likely passed between them, for Thomas Newcome 
took a new banker at this time, and, as Clive informed me, was 
in very great dudgeon, because Hobson Brothers wrote to him to 
say that he had overdrawn his account. “I am sure there is some 
screw loose,” the sagacious youth remarked to me; “and the 
Colonel and the people in Park Lane are at variance, because he 
goes there very little now ; and he promised to go to Court when 
Ethel was presented, and he didn’t go.” 

Some months after the arrival of Mr. Binnie’s niece and sister 
in Fitzroy Square, the fraternal quarrel between the Newcomes 
must have come to an end — for that time at least — and was 
followed by a rather ostentatious reconciliation. And pretty little 
Rosey Mackenzie was the innocent and unconscious cause of this 
amiable change in the minds of the three brethren, as I gathered 
from a little conversation with Mrs. Newcome, who did me the 
honour to invite me to her table. As she had not vouchsafed this 
hospitality to me for a couple of years previously, and perfectly 
stifled me with affability when we met, — as her invitation came 
quite at the end of the season, when almost everybody was out 
of town, and a dinner to a man is no compliment, — I was at 
first for declining this invitation, and spoke of it with great scorn 
when Mr. Newcome orally delivered it to me at Bays’s Club. 

“What,” said I, turning round to an old man of the world, 
who happened to be in the room at the time, “ what do these 
people mean by asking a fellow to dinner in August, and taking 
me. up after dropping me for two years'?” 

“ My good fellow,” says my friend — it was my kind old uncle 
Major Pendennis indeed — “I have lived long enough about town 
never to ask myself questions of that sort. In the world people 
drop you and take you, up every day. You know Lady Cheddar 
by sight? I have known her husband for forty years. I have 
stayed with them in the country for weeks at a time. She knows 
me as well as she knows King Charles at Charing Cross, and a 
doosid deal better, and yet for a whole season she will drop me — 
pass me by, as if there was no such person in the world. Well, 
sir, what do I do ? I never see her. I give you my word I am 
never conscious of her existence; and if I meet her at dinner, 
I’m no more aware of her than the fellows in the play are of 
Banquo. What’s the end of it? She comes round — only last 
Toosday she came round — and said Lord Cheddar wanted me to 
go down to Wiltshire. I asked after the family (you know Henry 


THE NEWCOMES 


241 


Churningham is engaged to Miss Rennet? — a doosid good match 
for the Cheddars). We shook hands and are as good friends as 
ever. I don’t suppose she’ll cry when I die, you know,” said the 
worthy old gentleman, with a grin. “Nor shall I go into very 
deep mourning if anything happens to her. You were quite right 
to say to Newcome that you did not know whether you were free 
or not, and would look at your engagements when you got home, 
and give him an answer. A fellow of that rank has no right to 
give himself airs. But they will, sir. Some of those bankers 
are as high and mighty as the oldest families. They marry noble- 
men’s daughters, by Jove, and think nothing is too good for ’em. 
But I should go, if I were you, Arthur. I dined there a couple 
of months ago ; and the bankeress said something about you : 
that you and her nephew were much together : that you were sad 
wild dogs, I think — something of that sort. ‘’Gad, ma’am,’ says 
I, ‘boys will be boys.’ ‘And they grow to be men,’ says she, 
nodding her head. Queer little woman, devilish pompous. Dinner 
confoundedly long, stoopid, scientific.” 

The old gentleman was on this day inclined to be talkative and 
confidential, and I set down some remarks which he made concern- 
ing my friends. “ Your Indian Colonel,” says he, “ seems a worthy 
man.” The Major quite forgot having been in India himself, unless 
he was in company with some very great personage. “ He don’t 
seem to know much of the world, and we are not very intimate. 
Fitzroy Square is a dev’lish long way off for a fellow to go for a 
dinner, and entre nous , the dinner is rather queer and the company 
still more so. It’s right for you, who are a literary man, to see all 
sorts of people ; but I’m different, you know, so Newcome and I are 
not very thick together. They say he wanted to marry your friend 
to Lady Ann’s daughter, an exceedingly fine girl; one of the 
prettiest girls come out this season. I hear the young men say so. 
And that shows how monstrous ignorant of the world Colonel 
Newcome is. His son could no more get that girl than he could 
marry one of the royal princesses. Mark my words, they intend 
Miss Newcome for Lord Kew. Those banker fellows are wild after 
grand marriages. Kew will sow his wild oats, and they’ll marry 
her to him ; or if not to him, to some man of high rank. His 
father Walham was a weak young man ; but his grandmother, old 
Lady Kew, is a monstrous clever old woman, too severe with her 
children, one of whom ran away and married a poor devil without 
a shilling. Nothing could show a more deplorable ignorance of 
the world than poor New r come supposing his son could make such 
a match as that with his cousin. Is it true that he is going to 
make his son an artist ? I don’t know what the dooce the world 
8 Q 


242 


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is coming to. An artist ! By Gad, in my time a fellow would as 
soon have thought of making his son a hairdresser, or a pastrycook, 
by Gad.” And the worthy Major gives his nephew two fingers, 
and trots off to the next club in St. James’s Street of which he is 
a member. 

The virtuous hostess of Bryanstone Square was quite civil and 
good-humoured when Mr. Pendennis appeared at her house ; and 
my surprise was not inconsiderable when I found the whole party 
from Saint Pancras there assembled — Mr. Binnie ; the Colonel and 
his son ; Mrs. Mackenzie, looking uncommonly handsome and 
perfectly well dressed ; and Miss Rosey, in pink crape, with pearly 
shoulders and blushing cheeks, and beautiful fair ringlets — as fresh 
and comely a sight as it was possible to witness. Scarcely had we 
made our bows, and shaken our hands, and imparted our observa- 
tions about the fineness of the weather, when, behold ! as we look 
from the drawing-room windows into the cheerful square of Bryan- 
stone, a great family coach arrives, driven by a family coachman in 
a family wig, and we recognise Lady Ann Newcome’s carriage, and 
see her Ladyship, her mother, her daughter, and her husband, Sir 
Brian, descend from the vehicle. “It is quite a family party,” 
whispers the happy Mrs. Newcome to the happy writer conversing 
with her in the niche of the window. “ Knowing your intimacy 
with our brother Colonel Newcome, we thought it would please him 
to meet you here. Will you be so kind as to take Miss Newcome 
to dinner ? ” 

Everybody was bent upon being happy and gracious. It was 
“ My dear brother, how do you do 1 ” from Sir Bryan. “ My dear 
Colonel, how glad we are to see you ! how well you look ! ” from 
Lady Ann. Miss Newcome ran up to him with both hands out, 
and put her beautiful face so close to his that I thought, upon my 
conscience, she was going to kiss him. And Lady Kew, advancing 
in the frankest manner, with a smile, I must own, rather awful, 
playing round the many wrinkles round her Ladyship’s hooked nose, 
and displaying her Ladyship’s teeth (a new and exceedingly hand- 
some set), held out her hand to Colonel Newcome, and said briskly, 
“ Colonel, it is an age since we met.” She turns to Clive with 
equal graciousness and good-humour, and says, “ Mr. Clive, let me 
shake hands with you ; I have heard all sorts of good of you, that 
you have been painting the most beautiful things, that you are 
going to be quite famous.” Nothing can exceed the grace and 
kindness of Lady Ann Newcome towards Mrs. Mackenzie : the 
pretty widow blushes with pleasure at this greeting ; and now Lady 
Ann must be introduced to Mrs. Mackenzie’s charming daughter, 
and whispers in the delighted mother’s ear, “ She is lovely ! ” 


THE NEWCOMES 


243 


Rosey comes up looking rosy indeed, and executes a pretty curtsey 
with a great deal of blushing grace. 

Ethel has been so happy to see her dear uncle, that, as yet, 
she has had no eyes for any one else, until Clive advancing, those 
bright eyes become brighter still with surprise and pleasure as she 
beholds him. And, as she looks, Miss Ethel sees a very handsome 
fellow. For being absent with his family in Italy now, and not 
likely to see this biography for many, many months, I may say that 
he is a much handsomer fellow than our designer has represented ; 
and if that wayward artist should take this very scene for the 
purpose of illustration, he is requested to bear in mind that the 
hero of this story will wish to have justice done to his person. 
There exists in Mr. Newcome’s possession a charming little pencil 
drawing of Clive at this age, and w T hich Colonel Newcome took 
with him when he went — whither he is about to go in a very few 
pages — and brought back with him to this country. A florid 
apparel becomes some men, as simple raiment suits others; and 
Clive in his youth was of the ornamental class of mankind — a 
customer to tailors, a wearer of handsome rings, shirt-studs, 
mustachios, long hair, and the like; nor could he help, in his 
costume or his nature, being picturesque, and generous, and 
splendid. He was always greatly delighted with that Scotch 
man-at-arms in “ Quentin Durward,” who twists off an inch or 
two of his gold chain to treat a friend and pay for a bottle. He 
would give a comrade a ring or a fine jewelled pin, if he had no 
money. Silver dressing-cases and brocade morning-gowns were in 
him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. It was a 
pleasure to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in 
the warmth of his bright looks and generous humour. His laughter 
cheered one like wine. I do not know that he was very witty ; 
but he was pleasant. He was prone to blush ; the history of a 
generous trait moistened his eyes instantly. He was instinctively 
fond of children, and of the other sex from one year old to eighty. 
Coming from the Derby once — a merry party — and stopped on the 
road from Epsom in a lock of carriages, during which the people 
in the carriage ahead saluted us with many vituperative epithets, 
and seized the heads of our leaders, Clive in a twinkling jumped 
off the box, and the next minute we saw him engaged with a half- 
dozen of the enemy : his hat gone, his fair hair flying off his face, 
his blue eyes flashing fire, his lips and nostrils quivering with wrath, 
his right and left hand hitting out, que c’etait un plaisir a voir. 
His father sat back in the carriage, looking with delight and wonder 
— indeed it was a great sight. Policeman X separated the warriors* 
Clive ascended the box again, with a dreadful wound in the coat, 


244 


THE NEWCOMES 


which was gashed from the waist to the shoulder. I hardly ever 
saw the elder Newcome in such a state of triumph. The postboys 
quite stared at the gratuity he gave them, and wished they might 
drive his lordship to the Oaks. 

All the time we have been making this sketch Ethel is standing 
looking at Clive ; and the blushing youth casts down his eyes before 
hers. Her face assumes a look of arch humour. She passes a slim 
hand over the prettiest lips and a chin with the most lovely of 
dimples, thereby indicating her admiration of Mr. Clive’s mustachios 
and imperial. They are of a warm yellowish chestnut colour, and 
have not yet known the razor. He wears a low cravat ; a shirt- 
front of the finest lawn, with ruby buttons. His hair, of a lighter 
colour, waves almost to “ his manly shoulders broad.” “ Upon my 
word, my dear Colonel,” says Lady Kew, after looking at him, and 
nodding her head shrewdly, “ I think we were right.” 

“No doubt right in everything your Ladyship does, but in 
what particularly ? ” asks the Colonel. 

“ Right to keep him out of the way. Ethel has been disposed 
of these ten years. Did not Ann tell you ? How foolish of her ! 
But all mothers like to have young men dying for their daughters. 
Your son is really the handsomest boy in London. Who is that 
conceited-looking young man in the window? Mr. Pen — what? 
Has your son really been very wicked ? I was told he was a sad 
scapegrace.” 

“ I never knew him do, and I don’t believe he ever thought 
anything that was untrue, or unkind, or ungenerous,” says the 
Colonel. “If any one has belied my boy to you, and I think I 
know who his enemy has been ” 

“ The young lady is very pretty,” remarks Lady Kew, stopping 
the Colonel’s further outbreak. “ How very young her mother 
looks ! Ethel, my dear ! Colonel Newcome must present us to 
Mrs. Mackenzie and Miss Mackenzie ; ” and Ethel giving a nod to 
Clive, with whom she has talked for a minute or two, again puts 
her hand in her uncle’s, and walks towards Mrs. Mackenzie and 
her daughter. 

And now let the artist, if he has succeeded in drawing Clive to 
his liking, cut a fresh pencil, and give us a likeness of Ethel. She 
is seventeen years old ; rather taller than the majority of women ; 
of a countenance somewhat grave and haughty, but on occasion 
brightening with humour or beaming with kindliness and affec- 
tion. Too quick to detect affectation or insincerity in others, too 
impatient of dulness or pomposity, she is more sarcastic now than 
she became when after years of suffering had softened her nature. 
Truth looks out of her bright eyes, and rises up armed, and flashes 


THE NEWCOMBS 


245 


scorn or denial, perhaps too readily, when she encounters flattery, 
or meanness, or imposture. After her first appearance in the world, 
if the truth must be told, this young lady was popular neither with 
many men nor with most women. The innocent dancing youth 
who pressed round her, attracted by her beauty, were rather afraid, 
after a while, of engaging her. This one felt dimly that she 
despised him; another, that his simpering commonplaces (delights 
of how many well-bred maidens !) only occasioned Miss Newcome’s 
laughter. Young Lord Croesus, whom all maidens and matrons 
were eager to secure, was astounded to find that she was utterly 
indifferent to him, and that she would refuse him twice or thrice in 
an evening, and dance as many times with poor Tom Spring, who 
was his father’s ninth son, and only at home till he could get a 
ship and go to sea again. The young women were frightened at 
her sarcasm. She seemed to know what fadaises they whispered 
to their partners as they paused in the waltzes ; and Fanny, who 
was luring Lord Croesus towards her with her blue eyes, dropped 
them guiltily to the floor when Ethel’s turned towards her ; and 
Cecilia sang more out of time than usual ; and Clara, who was 
holding Freddy and Charley and Tommy round her, enchanted by 
her bright conversation and witty mischief, became dumb and dis- 
turbed when Ethel passed her with her cold face ; and old Lady 
Hookham, who was playing off her little Minnie now at young 
Jack Gorget of the Guards, now at the eager and simple Bob 
Bateson of the Coldstreams, would slink off when Ethel made her 
appearance on the ground, whose presence seemed to frighten away 
the fish and the angler. No wonder that the other Mayfair nymphs 
were afraid of this severe Diana, whose looks were so cold, and 
whose arrows were so keen. 

But those who had no cause to heed Diana’s shot or coldness 
might admire her beauty : nor could the famous Parisian marble, 
which Clive said she resembled, be more perfect in form than this 
young lady. Her hair and eyebrows were jet black (these latter 
may have been too thick according to some physiognomists, giving 
rather a stern expression to the eyes, and hence causing those guilty 
ones to tremble who came under her lash), but her complexion was 
as dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as red as Miss Bosey’s own, who 
had a right to those beauties, being a blonde by nature. In Miss 
Ethel’s black hair there was a slight natural ripple, as when a fresh 
breeze blows over the melan hudor — a ripple such as Boman 
ladies nineteen hundred years ago, and our own beauties a short 
time since, endeavoured to imitate by art, paper, and I believe 
crumpling-irons. Her eyes were grey ; her mouth rather large ; 
her teeth as regular and bright as Lady Kew’s own ; her voice low 


246 


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and sweet ; and her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as 
beautiful as spring sunshine ; also they could lighten and flash 
often, and sometimes, though rarely, rain. As for her figure — but 
as this tall slender form is concealed in a simple white muslin robe 
(of the sort which, I believe, is called demi-toilette ), in which her 
fair arms are enveloped, and which is confined at her slim waist by 
an azure riband, and descends to her feet — let us make a respectful 
bow to that fair image of Youth, Health, and Modesty, and fkncy 
it as pretty as we will. Miss Ethel made a very stately curtsey to 
Mrs. Mackenzie, surveying that widow calmly, so that the elder 
lady looked up and fluttered ; but towards Rosey she held out her 
hand, and smiled with the utmost kindness, and the smile was 
returned by the other ; and the blushes with which Miss Mackenzie 
was always ready at this time became her very much. As for 
Mrs. Mackenzie — the very largest curve that shall not be a carica- 
ture, and actually disfigure the widow’s countenance — a smile so 
wide and steady, so exceedingly rident, indeed, as almost to be 
ridiculous — may be drawn upon the buxom face, if the artist chooses 
to attempt it as it appeared during the whole of this summer 
evening — before dinner came (when people ordinarily look very 
grave), when she was introduced to the company; when she was 
made known to our friends Fanny and Maria, the darling children, 
lovely little dears ! how like their papa and mamma ! when Sir 
Brian Newcome gave her his arm downstairs to the dining-room ; 
when anybody spoke to her ; when John offered her meat, or the 
gentleman in the white waistcoat, wine ; when she accepted or when 
she refused these refreshments ; when Mr. Newcome told her a 
dreadfully stupid story ; when the Colonel called cheerily from his 
end of the table, “ My dear Mrs. Mackenzie, you don’t take any 
wine to-day; may I not have the honour of drinking a glass of 
champagne with you % ” when the new boy from the country upset 
some sauce upon her shoulder; when Mrs. Newcome made the 
signal for departure ; and I have no doubt in the drawing-room, 
when the ladies retired thither. “ Mrs. Mack is perfectly awful,” 
Clive told me afterwards, “ since that dinner in Bryanstone Square. 
Lady Kew and Lady Ann are never out of her mouth ; she has had 
white muslin dresses made just like Ethel’s for herself and her 
daughter. She has bought a Peerage, and knows the pedigree of 
the whole Kew family. She won’t go out in a cab now without 
the boy on the box ; and in the plate for the cards which she has 
established in the drawing-room, you know, Lady Kew’s paste- 
board always will come up to the top, though I poke it down 
whenever I go into the room. As for poor Lady Trotter, the 
governess of St. Kitt’s, you know, and the Bishop of Tobago, 


THE NEWCOMES 247 

they are quite bowled out ; Mrs. Mack has not mentioned them 
for a week.” 

During the dinner it seemed to me that the lovely young lady 
by whom I sat cast many glances towards Mrs. Mackenzie which 
did not betoken particular pleasure. Miss Ethel asked me several 
questions regarding Clive, and also respecting Miss Mackenzie; 
perhaps her questions were rather downright and imperious, and 
she patronised me in a maimer that would not have given all 
gentlemen pleasure. I was Clive’s friend, his schoolfellow? had 
seen him a great deal? knew him very well — very well, indeed? 
“ Was it true that he had been very thoughtless ? very wild ? ” 
“ Who told her so ? ” “ That was not her question ” (with a blush). 
“ It was not true, and I ought to know ? He was not spoiled ? ” 
“He was very good-natured, generous, told the truth. He loved 
his profession very much, and had great talent.” “Indeed, she 
was very glad. Why do they sneer at his profession ? It seemed 
to her quite as good as her father’s and brother’s. Were artists 
not very dissipated?” “Not more so, nor often so much as other 
young men.” “Was Mr. Binnie rich, and was he going to leave 
all his money to his niece ? How long have you known them ? Is 
Miss Mackenzie as good-natured as she looks? Not very clever, 

I suppose? Mrs. Mackenzie looks very No, thank you, no 

more. Grandmamma (she is very deaf, and cannot hear) scolded 
me for reading the book you wrote, and took the book away. I 
got it afterwards, and read it all. I don’t think there was any 
harm in it. Why do you give such bad characters of women? 
Don’t you know any good ones?” “Yes, two as good as any in 
the world. They are unselfish; they are pious; they are always 
doing good; they live in the country.” “Why don’t you put 
them into a book? Why don’t you put my uncle into a book? 
He is so good, that nobody could make him good enough. Before 
I came out, I heard a young lady (Lady Clavering’s daughter, 
Miss Amory) sing a song of yours. I have never spoken to an 
author before. I saw Mr. Lyon at Lady Popinjay’s, and heard 
him speak. He said it was very hot, and he looked so, I am sure. 
Who is the greatest author now alive? You will tell me when 
you come upstairs after dinner.” And the young lady sails away, 
following the matrons, who rise and ascend to the drawing-room. 
Miss Newcome has been watching the behaviour of the author, 
by whom she sat, curious to know what such a person’s habits are, 
whether he speaks and acts like other people, and in what respect 
authors are different from persons “ in society.” 

When we had sufficiently enjoyed claret and politics below- 
stairs, the gentlemen went to the drawing-room to partake of coffee 


248 


THE NEWCOMES 


and the ladies’ delightful conversation. We had heard previously 
the tinkling of the piano above, and the well-known sound of a 
couple of Miss Rosey’s five songs. The two young ladies were 
engaged over an album at a side-table when the males of the party 
arrived. The book contained a number of Clive’s drawings made 
in the time of his very early youth for the amusement of his little 
cousins. Miss Ethel seemed to be very much pleased with these 
performances, which Miss Mackenzie likewise examined with great 
good-nature and satisfaction. So she did the views of Rome, 
Naples, Marble Head in the county of Sussex, &c., in the same 
collection ; so she did the Berlin cockatoo and spaniel which Mrs. 
Newcome was working in idle moments ; so she did the “ Books 
of Beauty,” “ Flowers of Loveliness,” and so forth. She thought 
the prints very sweet and pretty : she thought the poetry very 
pretty and sweet. Which did she like best, Mr. Niminy’s “Lines 
to a Bunch of Violets,” or Miss Piminy’s “ Stanzas to a Wreath 
of Roses ”1 Miss Mackenzie was quite puzzled to say which of 
these masterpieces she preferred; she found them alike so pretty. 
She appealed, as in most cases, to mamma. “How, my darling 
love, can I pretend to know?” mamma says. “I have been a 
soldier’s wife, battling about the world. I have not had your 
advantages. I had no drawing-masters, nor music-masters, as you 
have. You, dearest child, must instruct me in these things.” This 
poses Rosey : who prefers to have her opinions dealt out to her 
like her frocks, bonnets, handkerchiefs, her shoes and gloves, and 
the order thereof ; the lumps of sugar for her tea, the proper 
quantity of raspberry jam for breakfast : who trusts for all supplies 
corporeal and spiritual to her mother. For her own part, Rosey 
is pleased with everything in nature. Does she love music? Oh 
yes. Bellini and Donizetti? Oh yes. Dancing? They had no 
dancing at grandmamma’s, but she adores dancing, and Mr. Clive 
dances very well indeed. (A smile from Miss Ethel at this ad- 
mission.) Does she like the country ? Oh, she is so happy in the 
country ! London ? London is delightful, and so is the sea-side. 
She does not know really which she likes best, London or the 
country, for mamma is not near her to decide, being engaged listen- 
ing to Sir Brian, who is laying down the law to her, and smiling, 
smiling with all her might. In fact, Mr. Newcome says to Mr. 
Pendennis in his droll, humorous way, “ That woman grins like a 
Cheshire cat.” Who was the naturalist who first discovered that 
peculiarity of the cats in Cheshire ? 

In regard to Miss Mackenzie’s opinions, then, it is not easy to dis- 
cover that they are decided, or profound, or original ; but it seems 
pretty clear that she has a good temper, and a happy contented 


THE NEWCOMES 


249 


disposition. And the smile which her pretty countenance wears 
shows off to great advantage the two dimples on her pink cheeks. 
Her teeth are even and white, her hair of a beautiful colour, and no 
snow can be whiter than her fair round neck and polished shoulders. 
She talks very kindly and good-naturedly with Fanny and Maria 
(Mrs. Hobson’s precious ones) until she is bewildered by the state- 
ments which those young ladies make regarding astronomy, botany, 
and chemistry, all of which they are studying. “ My dears, I don’t 
know a single word about any of these abstruse subjects ; I wish I 
did,” she says. And Ethel Newcome laughs. She, too, is ignorant 
upon all these subjects. “I am glad there is some one else,” says 
Rosey, with naivete ’ “who is as ignorant as I am.” And the 
younger children, with a solemn air, say they will ask mamma 
leave to teach her. So everybody, somehow, great or small, seems 
to protect her; and the humble, simple, gentle little thing wins 
a certain degree of good-will from the world, which is touched by 
her humility and her pretty sweet looks. The servants in Fitzroy 
Square waited upon her much more kindly than upon her smiling 
bustling mother. Uncle James is especially fond of his little Rosey. 
Her presence in his study never discomposes him ; whereas his 
sister fatigues him with the exceeding activity of her gratitude, and 
her energy in pleasing. As I was going away, I thought I heard 
Sir Brian Newcome say, “It” (but what “It” was of course I 
cannot conjecture) — “It will do very well. The mother seems a 
superior woman.” 


CHAPTER XXV 

IS PASSED IN A PUBLIC-HOUSE 

I HAD no more conversation with Miss Newcome that night, 
who had forgotten her curiosity about the habits of authors. 
When she had ended her talk with Miss Mackenzie, she devoted 
the rest of the evening to her uncle Colonel Newcome; and con- 
cluded by saying, “And now you will come and ride with me to- 
morrow, uncle, won’t you 1 ” which the Colonel faithfully promised 
to do. And she shook hands with Clive very kindly ; and with 
Rosey very frankly, but as X thought with rather a patronising air ; 
and she made a very stately bow to Mrs. Mackenzie, and so 
departed with her father and mother. Lady Kew had gone away 
earlier. Mrs. Mackenzie informed us afterwards that the Countess 
had gone to sleep after her dinner. If it was at Mrs. Mack’s story 
about the Governor’s ball at Tobago, and the quarrel for precedence 
between the Lord Bishop’s lady, Mrs. Rotchet, and the Chief- 
Justice’s wife, Lady Barwise, I should not be at all surprised. 

A handsome fly carried off the ladies to Fitzroy Square, and 
the two worthy Indian gentlemen in their company ; Clive and I 
walking with the usual Havannah to light us home. And Clive 
remarked that he supposed there had been some difference between 
his father and the bankers ; for they had not met for ever so many 
months before, and the Colonel always had looked very gloomy 
when his brothers were mentioned. “And I can’t help thinking,” 
says the astute youth, “ that they fancied I was in love with Ethel 
(I know the Colonel would have liked me to make up to her), and 
that may have occasioned the row. Now, I suppose, they think I 
am engaged to Rosey. What the deuce are they in such a hurry 
to marry me for ? ” 

Clive’s companion remarked, “that marriage was a laudable 
institution ; and an honest attachment an excellent conservator of 
youthful morals.” On which Clive replied, “ Why don’t you marry 
yourself? ” 

This, it was justly suggested, was no argument, but a merely 
personal allusion foreign to the question, which was, that marriage 
was laudable, &c. 


THE NEWCOMES 


251 


Mr. Clive laughed. “ Rosey is as good a little creature as can 
be,” he said. “ She is never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. 
Mackenzie tries her. I don’t think she is very wise : but she is 
uncommonly pretty, and her beauty grows on you. As for Ethel, 
anything so high and mighty I have never seen since I saw the 
French giantess. Going to Court, and about to parties every night 
where a parcel of young fools flatter her, has perfectly spoiled her. 
By Jove, how handsome she is! How she turns with her long 
neck, and looks at you from under those black eyebrows ! If I 
painted her hair, I think I should paint it almost blue, and then 
glaze over with lake. It is blue. And how finely her head is 
joined on to her shoulders ! ” — and he waves in the air an imaginary 
line with his cigar. “ She would do for Judith, wouldn’t she? Or 
how grand she would look as Herodias’s daughter sweeping down a 
stair — in a great dress of cloth of gold like Paul Veronese — holding 
a charger before her with white arms, you know — with the muscles 
accented like the glorious Diana at Paris — a savage smile on her 
face and a ghastly solemn gory head on the dish — I see the picture, 
sir, I see the picture ! ” and he fell to curling his mustachios — just 
like his brave old father. 

I could not help laughing at the resemblance, and mentioning 
it to my friend. He broke, as was his wont, into a fond eulogium 
of his sire, wished he could be like him — worked himself up into 
another state of excitement, in which he averred that, if his father 
wanted him to marry, he would marry that instant. “And why 
not Rosey ? She is a dear little thing. Or why not that splendid 
Miss Sherrick ? What a head ! — a regular Titian ! I was looking 
at the difference of their colour at Uncle Honeyman’s that day of 
the dejeuner. The shadows in Rosey’s face, sir, are all pearly 
tinted. You ought to paint her in milk, sir ! ” cries the enthusiast. 
“ Have you ever remarked the grey round her eyes, and the sort of 
purple bloom of her cheek 1 Rubens could have done the colour : 
but I don’t somehow like to think of a young lady and that 
sensuous old Peter Paul in company. I look at her like a little 
wild flower in a field — like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little 
tender nursling ! If I see her passing in the street, I feel as if I 
would like some fellow to be rude to her, that I might have the 
pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little song-bird, sir, 
— a tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into 
your hand, pavidam qucerentem matrem , and smooth its little 
plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing. The Sherrick 
creates quite a different sentiment — the Sherrick is splendid, stately, 
sleepy, ...” 

“ Stupid,” hints Clive’s companion. 


252 


THE NEWCOMES 


“Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. 
What you call dulness I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a 
slow woman, — a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin 
bearing a lily; not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively 
woman would be the death of me. Look at Mrs. Mack, perpetually 
nodding, winking, grinning, throwing out signals which you are to 
be at the trouble to answer ! I thought her delightful for three 
days ; I declare I was in love with her — that is, as much as I can 
be after — but never mind that, I feel I shall never be really in 
love again. Why shouldn’t the Sherrick be stupid, I say ? About 
great beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at 
the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature, you 
hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a 
temple. When I saw the great Venus of the Louvre, I thought 
— Wert thou alive, 0 goddess, thou shouldst never open those 
lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly ; thou shouldst never descend 
from that pedestal but to walk stately to some near couch, and 
assume another attitude of beautiful calm. To be beautiful is 
enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more 
from her? You don’t want a rose to sing. And I think wit is 
out of place where there’s great beauty; as I wouldn’t have a 
Queen to cut jokes on her throne. I say, Pendennis,” — here broke 
off the enthusiastic youth, — “ have you got another cigar ? Shall 
we go into Finch’s, and have a game at billiards ? Just one — it’s 
quite early yet. Or shall we go into the * Haunt’? It’s Wednes- 
day night, you know, when all the boys go.” We tap at a door in 
an old, old street in Soho : an old maid with a kind comical face 
opens the door, and nods friendly, and says, “How do, sir? ain’t 
seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Noocom?” “Who’s 
here?” “ Most everybody’s here.” We pass by a little snug bar, 
in which a trim elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which 
boils an enormous kettle; while two gentlemen are attacking a 
cold saddle of mutton and West India pickles : hard by Mrs. 
Nokes the landlady’s elbow — with mutual bows — we recognise 
Hickson the sculptor, and Morgan, intrepid Irish chieftain, chief of 
the reporters of the Morning Press newspaper. We pass through 
a passage into a back-room, and are received with a roar of welcome 
from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke. 

“I am right glad to see thee, boy ! ” cries a cheery voice (that 
will never troll a chorus more). “We spake anon of thy misfortune, 
gentle youth ! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the 
Academy in vain. Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school 
with barbarous visages of grisly war. Pendennis, thou dost wear 
a thirsty look ! Resplendent swell ! untwine thy choker white, 


THE NEWCOMES 


253 


and I will either stand a glass of grog, or thou shaft pay the like 
for me, my lad, and tell us of the fashionable world.” Thus spake 
the brave old Tom Sarjent, — also one of the Press, one of the old 
boys ; a good old scholar with a good old library of books, who had 
taken his seat any time these forty years by the chimney-fire in 
this old “Haunt” : where painters, sculptors, men of letters, actors, 
used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough kindly com- 
munion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy street 
ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out, and closed the 
hospitable gates of the “ Haunt.” 

The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. 
As we think of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the 
pleasant voices and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty 
companions. In the days when the “ Haunt ” was a haunt, stage- 
coaches were not yet quite over. Casinos were not invented, clubs 
were rather rare luxuries ; there were sanded floors, triangular saw- 
dust-boxes, pipes, and tavern parlours. Young Smith and Brown, 
from the Temple, did not go from chambers to dine at the “ Poly- 
anthus,” or the “ Megatherium,” off potage k la Bisque, turbot au 
gratin, cote-lettes k la What-d’you-call-’em, and a pint of St. 
Emilion ; but ordered their beef-steak and pint of port from the 
“ plump head- waiter at the ‘ Cock ’ ; ” did not disdain the pit of the 
theatre ; and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How 
delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now ! — 
the cards — the punch — the candles to be snuffed — the social oysters 
— the modest cheer ! Who ever snuffs a candle now 'l What man 
has a domestic supper, whose dinner-hour is eight o’clock ? Those 
little meetings, in the memory of many of us yet, are gone quite 
away into the past. Five-and- twenty years ago is a hundred years 
off — so much has our social life changed in those five lustres. James 
Boswell himself, were he to revisit London, would scarce venture to 
enter a tavern. It is an institution as extinct as a hackney-coach. 
Many a grown man who peruses this historic page has never seen 
such a vehicle, and only heard of rum-punch as a drink which his 
ancestors used to tipple. 

Cheery old Tom Sarjent is surrounded at the “ Haunt ” by a 
dozen of kind boon companions. They toil all day at their avoca- 
tions of art, or letters, or law, and here meet for a harmless night’s 
recreation and converse. They talk of literature, or politics, or 
pictures, or plays; socially banter one another over their cheap 
cups ; sing brave old songs sometimes when they are especially jolly : 
kindly ballads in praise of love and wine ; famous maritime ditties 
in honour of Old England. I fancy I hear Jack Brent’s noble voice 
rolling out the sad generous refrain of “ The Deserter,” “ Then for 


254 


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that reason and for a season we will be merry before we go,” or 
Michael Percy’s clear tenor carolling the Irish chorus of “ What’s 
that to any one, whether or no • ” or Mark Wilder shouting his 
bottle song of “ Garry o wen na gloria.” These songs were regarded 
with affection by the brave old frequenters of the “Haunt.” A 
gentleman’s property in a song was considered sacred. It was re- 
spectfully asked for; it was heard with the more pleasure for being 
old. Honest Tom Sargent ! how the times have changed since we 

saw thee ! I believe the present chief of the reporters of the 

newspaper (which responsible office Tom filled) goes to Parlia- 
ment in his brougham, and dines with the Ministers of the 
Crown. 

Around Tom are seated grave Royal Academicians, rising gay 
Associates ; writers of other journals besides the Pall Mall Gazette; 
a barrister maybe, whose name will be famous some day ; a hewer 
of marble perhaps ; a surgeon whose patients have not come yet ; 
and one or two men about town who like this queer assembly better 
than haunts much more splendid. Captain Shandon has been here, 
and his jokes are preserved in the tradition of the place. Owlet, 
the philosopher, came once and tried, as his wont is, to lecture, but 
his metaphysics were beaten down by a storm of banter. Slatter, 

who gave himself such airs because he wrote in the Review , 

tried to air himself at the “ Haunt,” but was choked by the smoke, 
and silenced by the unanimous pooh-poohing of the assembly. Dick 
Walker, who rebelled secretly at Sarjent’s authority, once thought 
to give himself consequence by bringing a young lord from the 
“ Blue Posts,” but he was so unmercifully “ chaffed ” by Tom, that 
even the young lord laughed at him. His lordship has been heard 
to say he had been taken to “ a monsus queeah place, queeah set of 
folks,” in a tap somewhere, though he went away quite delighted 
with Tom’s affability, but he never came again. He could not find 
the place probably. You might pass the “ Haunt ” in the daytime 
and not know it in the least. “ I believe,” said Charley Ormond 
(A.R.A. he was then) — “I believe in the day there’s no such place 
at all ; and when Betsy turns the gas off at the door-lamp as we 
go away, the whole thing vanishes : the door, the house, .the bar, 
the ‘ Haunt,’ Betsy, the beer-boy, Mrs. Nokes and all.” It has 
vanished : it is to be found no more : neither by night nor by day 
— unless the ghosts of good fellows still haunt it. 

As the genial talk and glass go round, and after Clive and his 
friend have modestly answered the various queries put to them by 
good old Tom Sarjent, the acknowledged Prseses of the assembly 
and Sachem of this venerable wigwam, the door opens and another 
well-known figure is recognised with shouts as it emerges through 


THE NEWCOMES 255 

the smoke. “ Bayham, all hail ! ” says Tom. “ Frederick, I am 
right glad to see thee ! ” 

Bayham says he is disturbed in spirit, and calls for a pint of 
beer to console him. 

“ Hast thou flown far, thou restless bird of night 'l ” asks Father 
Tom, who loves speaking in blank verse. 

“ I have come from Cursitor Street,” says Bayham in a low 
groan. “ I have just been to see a poor devil in quod there. Is 
that you, Pendennis 1 ? You know the man — Charles Honeyman.” 

“ What ! ” cries Clive, starting up. 

“ 0 my prophetic soul, my uncle ! ” growls Bayham. “ I did 
not see the young one ; but ’tis true.” 

The reader is aware that more than the three years have elapsed, 
of which time the preceding pages contain the harmless chronicle ; 
and while Thomas Newcome’s leave has been running out and Clive’s 
mustachios growing, the fate of other persons connected with our 
story has also had its development, and their fortune has experienced 
its natural progress, its increase or decay. Our tale, such as it has 
hitherto been arranged, has passed in leisurely scenes wherein the 
present tense is perforce adopted ; the writer acting as chorus to the 
drama, and occasionally explaining, by hints or more open statements, 
what has occurred during the intervals of the acts; and how it 
happens that the performers are in such or such a posture. In the 
modern theatre, as the play-going critic knows, the explanatory 
personage is usually of quite a third-rate order. He is the two 
walking gentlemen friends of Sir Harry Courtly, who welcome the 
young baronet to London, and discourse about the niggardliness of 
Harry’s old uncle the Nabob ; and the depth of Courtly’s passion 
for Lady Annabel, the premiere amoureuse. He is the confidant 
in white linen to the heroine in white satin. He is “ Tom, you 
rascal,” the valet or tiger, more or less impudent and acute — that 
well-known menial in top-boots and a livery frock with red cuffs and 
collar, whom Sir Harry always retains in his service, addresses with 
scurrilous familiarity, and pays so irregularly; or he is Lucetta, 
Lady Annabel’s waiting-maid, who carries the billets-doux and peeps 
into them ; knows all about the family affairs ; pops the lover under 
the sofa ; and sings a comic song between the scenes. Our business 
now is to enter into Charles Honeyman’s privacy, to peer into the 
secrets of that reverend gentleman, and to tell what has happened 
to him during the past months, in which he has made fitful though 
graceful appearances on our stage. 

While his nephew’s whiskers have been budding, and his brother- 
in-law has been spending his money and leave, Mr. Honeyman’s 
hopes have been withering, his sermons growing stale, his once 


256 


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blooming popularity drooping and running to seed. Many causes 
have contributed to bring him to his present melancholy strait. 
When you go to Lady Whittlesea’s chapel now, it is by no means 
crowded. Gaps are in the pews ; there is not the least difficulty in 
getting a snug place near the pulpit, whence the preacher can look 
over his pocket-handkerchief and see Lord Dozeley no more : his 
Lordship has long gone to sleep elsewhere; and a host of the 
fashionable faithful have migrated too. The incumbent can no more 
cast his fine eyes upon the French bonnets of the female aristocracy 
and see some of the loveliest faces in Mayfair regarding him with 
expressions of admiration. Actual dowdy tradesmen of the neigh- 
bourhood are seated with their families in the aisles ; Ridley and his 
wife and son have one of the very best seats. To be sure Ridley 
looks like a nobleman, with his large waistcoat, bald head, and 
gilt book ; J. J. has a fine head, but Mrs. Ridley ! cook and house- 
keeper is written on her round face. The music is by no means of 
its former good quality. That rebellious and ill-conditioned basso 
Bellew has seceded, and seduced the four best singing boys, who now 
perform glees at the “ Cave of Harmony.” Honeyman has a right 
to speak of persecution and to compare himself to a hermit in so 
far that he preaches in a desert. Once, like another hermit, St. 
Hierome, he used to be visited by lions. None such come to him 
now. Such lions as frequent the clergy are gone off to lick the 
feet of other ecclesiastics. They are weary of poor Honeyman’s 
old sermons. 

Rivals have sprung up in the course of these three years — have 
sprung up round about Honeyman and carried his flock into their 
folds. We know how such simple animals will leap one after 
another, and that it is the sheepish way. Perhaps a new pastor 
has come to the church of St. Jacob’s hard by — bold, resolute, 
bright, clear, a scholar and no pedant : his manly voice is thrilling 
in their ears, he speaks of life and conduct, of practice as well as 
faith ; and crowds of the most polite, and most intelligent, and best 
informed, and best dressed, and most selfish people in the world 
come and hear him twice at least. There are so many well-in- 
formed and well-dressed &c. &c. people in the world that the 
succession of them keeps St. Jacob’s full for a year or more. Then, 
it may be, a bawling quack, who has neither knowledge, nor scholar- 
ship, nor charity, but who frightens the public with denunciations, 
and rouses them with the energy of his wrath, succeeds in bringing 
them together for a while till they tire of his din and curses. 
Meanwhile the good quiet old churches round about ring their 
accustomed bell, open their Sabbath gates, and receive their tranquil 
congregations and sober priest, who has been busy all the week, at 


THE NEWCOMES 257 

schools and sick-beds, with watchful teaching, gentle counsel, and 
silent alms. 

Though we saw Honeyman but seldom, for his company was 
not altogether amusing, and his affectation, when one became ac- 
quainted with it, very tiresome to witness, Fred Bayham, from his 
garret at Mrs. Ridley’s, kept constant watch over the curate, and 
told us of his proceedings from time to time. When we heard the 
melancholy news first announced, of course the intelligence damped 
the gaiety of Clive and his companion ; and F. B., who conducted 
all the affairs of life with great gravity, telling Tom Sarjent that he 
had news of importance for our private ear, Tom, with still more 
gravity than F. B.’s, said, “ Go, my children, you had best discuss 
this topic in a separate room, apart from the din and fun of a 
convivial assembly ; ” and, ringing the bell, he bade Betsy bring him 
another glass of rum-and-water, and one for Mr. Desborough, to be 
charged to him. 

We adjourned to another parlour then, where gas was lighted 
up ; and F. B., over a pint of beer, narrated poor Honeyman’s 
mishap. “ Saving your presence, Clive,” said Bayham, “ and with 
every regard for the youthful bloom of your young heart’s affections, 
your uncle, Charles Honeyman, sir, is a bad lot. I have known 
him these twenty years, when I was at his father’s as a private pupil. 
Old Miss Honeyman is one of those cards which we call trumps— 
so was old Honeyman a trump ; but Charles and his sister ” 

I stamped on F. B.’s foot under the table. He seemed to have 
forgotten that he was about to speak of Clive’s mother. 

“ Hem ! of your poor mother, I — hem — I may say vidi tantum. 
I scarcely knew her. She married very young ; as I was when she 
left Borehambury. But Charles exhibited his character at a very 
early age — and it was not a charming one — no, by no means a 
model of virtue. He always had a genius for running into debt 
He borrowed from every one of the pupils — I don’t know how he 
spent it except in hardbake and alycompaine — and even from old 
Nosey’s groom — pardon me, we used to call your grandfather by 
that playful epithet (boys will be boys, you know) — even from the 
Doctor’s groom he took money, and I recollect thrashing Charles 
Honeyman for that disgraceful action. 

“At college, without any particular show, he was always in 
debt and difficulties. Take warning by him, dear youth ! By him 
and by me, if you like. See me — me, F. Bayham, descended from 
the ancient kings that long the Tuscan sceptre swayed, dodge down 
a street to get out of sight of a boot-shop, and my colossal frame 
tremble if a chap puts his hand on my shoulder, as you did, 
Pendennis, the other day in the Strand, when I thought a straw 

8 R 


258 


THE NEWCOMES 


might have knocked me down ! I have had my errors, Clive. I 
know ’em. I’ll take another pint of beer, if you please. Betsy, 
has Mrs. Nokes any cold meat in the bar 1 and an accustomed 
pickle ? Ha ! Give her my compliments, and say F. B. is hungry. 
I resume my tale. Faults F. B. has, and knows it. Humbug 
he may have been sometimes ; but I’m not such a complete hum- 
bug as Honeyman.” 

Clive did not know how to look at this character of his 
relative ; but Clive’s companion burst into a fit of laughter, at 
which F. B. nodded gravely, and resumed his narrative. “ I don’t 
know how much money he has had from your governor, but this 
I can say, the half of it would make F. B. a happy man. I don’t 
know out of how much the reverend party has nobbled his poor 
old sister at Brighton. He has mortgaged his chapel to Sherrick, 
I suppose you know, who is master of it, and could turn him out 
any day. I don’t think Sherrick is a bad fellow. I think he’s 
a good fellow ; I have known him do many a good turn to a 
chap in misfortune. He wants to get into society; what more 
natural ? That was why you were asked to meet him the other 
day, and why he asked you to dinner. I hope you had a good one. 
I wish he’d ask me. 

“Then Moss has got Honeyman’s bills, and Moss’s brother-in- 
law in Cursitor Street has taken possession of his revered person. 
He’s very welcome. One Jew has the chapel, another Hebrew has 
the clergyman. It’s singular, ain’t it 1 Sherrick might turn Lady 
Whittlesea into a synagogue and have the Chief Rabbi into the 
pulpit where my uncle the Bishop has given out the text. 

“The shares of that concern ain’t at a premium. I have had 
immense fun with Sherrick about it. I like the Hebrew, sir. He 
maddens with rage when F. B. goes and asks him whether any 
more pews are let overhead. Honeyman begged and borrowed in 
order to buy out the last man. I remember when the speculation 
was famous, when all the boxes (I mean the pews) were taken for 
the season, and you couldn’t get a place, come ever so early. Then 
Honeyman was spoilt, and gave his sermons over and over again. 
People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old crocodile ! 
Then we tried the musical dodge. F. B. came forward, sir, there. 
That was a coup : I did it, sir. Bellew wouldn’t have simg for 
any man but me — and for two-and-twenty months I kept him as 
sober as Father Mathew. Then Honeyman didn’t pay him ; there 
was a row in the sacred building, and Bellew retired. Then 
Sherrick must meddle in it. And, having heard a chap out Hamp- 
stead way who Sherrick thought would do, Honeyman was forced 
to engage him, regardless of expense. You recollect the fellow, sir ] 


THE NEWCOMES 


259 

The Reverend Simeon Rawkins, the lowest of the Low Church, 
sir — a red-haired dumpy man, who gasped at his h J s and spoke with 
a Lancashire twang — he’d no more do for Mayfair than Grimaldi 
for Macbeth. He and Honeyman used to fight like cat .and dog 
in the vestry ; and he drove away a third part of the congregation. 
He was an honest man and an able man too, though not a sound 
churchman ” (F. B. said this with a very edifying gravity) ; “ I 
told Sherrick this the very day I heard him. And if he had spoken 
to me on the subject I might have saved him a pretty penny — 
a precious deal more than the paltry sum which he and I had a 
quarrel about at that time — a matter of business, sir — a pecuniary 
difference about a small three-months’ thing which caused a tem- 
porary estrangement between us. As for Honeyman, he used to 
cry about it. Your uncle is great in the lachrymatory line, Clive 
Newcome. He used to go with tears in his eyes to Sherrick, and 
implore him not to have Rawkins, but he would. And I must 
say for poor Charles, that the failure of Lady Whittlesea’s has not 
been altogether Charles’s fault ; and that Sherrick has kicked down 
that property. 

“Well then, sir, poor Charles thought to make it all right by 
marrying Mrs. Brumby ! — and she was very fond of him and the thing 
was all but done, in spite of her sons, wdio were in a rage, as you 
may fancy. But Charley, sir, has such a propensity for humbug 
that he will tell lies when there is no earthly good in lying. He 
represented his chapel at twelve hundred a year, his private means 
as so and so ; and when he came to book up with Briggs, the 
lawyer, Mrs. Brumby’s brother, it was found that he lied and 
prevaricated so that the widow, in actual disgust, would have 
nothing more to do with him. She was a good woman of business, 
and managed the hat shop for nine years whilst poor Brumby was 
at Doctor Tokely’s. A first-rate shop it was too. I introduced Charles 
to it. My uncle the Bishop had his shovels there : and they used 
for a considerable period to cover this humble roof with tiles,” said 
F. B., tapping his capacious forehead ; “I am sure he might have 
had Brumby,” he added in his melancholy tones, “ but for those 
unlucky lies. She didn’t want money. She had plenty. She 
longed to get into society, and was bent on marrying a gentleman. 

“ But what I can’t pardon in Honeyman is the way in which 
he has done poor old Ridley and his wife. I took him there, you 
know, thinking they would send their bills in once a month ; that 
he was doing a good business ; in fact, that I had put ’em into a 
good thing. And the fellow has told me a score of times that he 
and the Ridleys were all right. But he has not only not paid his 
lodgings, but he has had money of them ; he has given dinners ; he 


260 


THE NEWCOMES 


has made Ridley pay for wine. He has kept paying lodgers out of 
the house, and he tells me all this with a burst of tears, when he 
sent for me to Lazarus’s to-night, and I went to him, sir, because 
he was. in distress — went into the lion’s den, sir!” says F. B., 
looking round nobly. “ I don’t know how much he owes them ; 
because, of course, you know, the sum he mentions ain’t the right 
one. He never does tell the truth — does Charles. But think of 
the pluck of those good Ridleys, never saying a single word to F. B. 
about the debt! { We are poor, but we have saved some money 
and can lie out of it. And we think Mr. Honeyman will pay us,’ 
says Mrs. Ridley to me this very evening. And she thrilled my 
heart-strings, sir; and I took her in my arms, and kissed the old 
woman,” says Bayham ; “ and I rather astonished little Miss Cann, 
and young J. J., who came in with a picture under his arm. But 
she said she had kissed Master Frederick long before J. J. was 
born — and so she had ; that good and faithful servant — and my 
emotion in embracing her was manly, sir, manly.” 

Here old Betsy came in to say that the supper “ was a waitin’ 
for Mr. Bayham and it was a gettin’ very late ; ” and we left F. B. 
to his meal ; and bidding adieu to Mrs. Hokes, Clive and I went 
each to our habitation. 


CHAPTER XXVI 

IN WHICH COLONEL NEWCOME’S HORSES ARE SOLD 


T an hour early the next morning I was not surprised to see 



Colonel Newcome at my chambers, to whom Clive had com- 


* * municated Bayham’s important news of the night before. 

The Colonel’s object, as any one who knew him need scarcely be 
told, was to rescue his brother-in-law ; and being ignorant of lawyers, 
sheriffs’ officers, and their proceedings, he bethought him that he 
would apply to Lamb Court for information, and in so far showed 
some prudence, for at least I knew more of the world and its ways 
than my simple client, and was enabled to make better terms for 
the unfortunate prisoner, or rather for Colonel Newcome, who was 
the real sufferer, than Honeymau’s creditors might otherwise have 
been disposed to give. 

I thought it would be more prudent that our good Samaritan 
should not see the victim of rogues whom he was about to succour ; 
and left him to entertain himself with Mr. Warrington in Lamb 
Court, while I sped to the lock-up house, where the Mayfair pet 
was confined. A sickly smile played over his countenance as he 
beheld me when I was ushered to his private room. The reverend 
gentleman was not shaved ; he had partaken of breakfast. I saw 
a glass which had once contained brandy on the dirty tray whereon 
his meal was placed ; a greasy novel from a Chancery Lane library 
lay on the table ; but he was at present occupied in writing one or 
more of those great long letters, those laborious, ornate, eloquent 
statements, those documents so profusely underlined, in which the 
machinations of villains are laid bare w r ith italic fervour ; the cold- 
ness, to use no harsher phrase, of friends on whom reliance might 
have been placed ; the outrageous conduct of Solomons ; the astonish- 
ing failure of Smith to pay a sum of money on which he had counted 
as on the Bank of England ; finally, the infallible certainty of 
repaying (with what heartfelt thanks need not be said) the loan of 
so many pounds next Saturday week at farthest. All this, which 
some readers in the course of their experience have read no doubt in 
many handwritings, was duly set forth by poor Honey man. There 
was a wafer in a wine-glass on the table, and the bearer no doubt 


262 


THE NEWCOMES 


below to carry the missive. They always send these letters by a 
messenger, who is introduced in the postscript ; he is always sitting 
in the hall when you get the letter, and is “ a young man waiting 
for an answer, please.” 

No one can suppose that Honeyman laid a complete statement 
of his affairs before the negotiator who was charged to look into 
them. No debtor does confess all his debts, but breaks them 
gradually to his man of business, factor or benefactor, leading him 
on from surprise to surprise ; and when he is in possession of 
the tailor’s little account, introducing him to the bootmaker. 
Honeyman’s schedule I felt perfectly certain was not correct. 
The detainers against him were trifling. “ Moss of Wardour 
Street, one hundred and twenty — I believe I have paid him 
thousands in this very transaction,” ejaculates Honeyman. “A 
heartless West End tradesman hearing of my misfortune — these 
people are all linked together, my dear Pendennis, and rush like 
vultures upon their prey ! — Waddilove, the tailor, has another writ 
out for ninety-eight pounds : a man whom I have made by my recom- 
mendations ! Tobbins, the bootmaker, his neighbour in Jermyn 
Street, forty-one pounds more, and that is all — I give you my word, 
all. In a few months, when my pew-rents will be coming in, I should 
have settled with those cormorants ; otherwise, my total and irre- 
trievable ruin, and the disgrace and humiliation of a prison attend me. 
I know it; I can bear it; I have been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: 
I can say mea culpa , mea maxima culpa, and I can — bear — my 
— penalty.” In his finest moments he was never more pathetic. 
He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief not 
so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesea’s. 

How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make 
other confessions; how we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley’s account 
from him, of his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned 
here. The conclusion to which Colonel Newcome’s ambassador 
came was, that to help such a man would be quite useless; and 
that the Fleet Prison would be a most wholesome retreat for this 
most reckless divine. Ere the day was out, Messrs. Waddilove 
and Tobbins had conferred with their neighbour in St. James’s, 
Mr. Brace ; and there came a detainer from that haberdasher 
for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might have 
done credit to the most dandified young Guardsman. Mr. War- 
rington was on Mr. Pendennis’s side, and urged that the law 
should take its course. “Why help a man,” said he, “who will 
not help himself 1 ? Let the law sponge out the fellow’s debts ; set 
him going again with twenty pounds when he quits the prison, 
and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle of Man,” 


THE HEW COMES 


263 


I saw by the Colonel’s grave kind face that these hard opinions 
did not suit him. “ At all events, sir, promise us,” we said, “ that 
you will pay nothing yourself — that you won’t see Honeyman’s 
creditors, but will let people who know the world better deal with 
him.” “ Know the world, young man ! ” cries Newcome ; “ I should 
think if I don’t know the world at my age, I never shall.” And 
if he had lived to be as old as Mahalaleel, a boy could still have 
cheated him. 

“I do not scruple to tell you,” he said, after a pause, during 
which a plenty of smoke was delivered from the council of three, 
“ that I have — a fund — which I had set aside for mere purposes 
of pleasure, I give you my word, and a part of which I shall think 
it my duty to devote to poor Honeyman’s distresses. The fund is 
not large. The money was intended, in fact, — however, there it 
is. If Pendennis will go round to these tradesmen, and make some 
composition with them, as their prices have been no doubt enor- 
mously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides the tradesfolk, there 
is good Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Sherrick — we must see them; and, 
if we can, set this luckless Charles again on his legs. We have 
read of other prodigals who were kindly treated ; and we may have 
debts of our own to forgive, boys.” 

Into Mr. Sherrick’s account we had no need to enter. That 
gentleman had acted with perfect fairness by Honeyman. He 
laughingly said to us, “You don’t imagine I would lend that chap 
a shilling without security ! I will give him fifty or a hundred. 
Here’s one of his notes, with what-d’you-call-’em’s — that rum fellow 
Bay ham’s — name as drawer. A nice pair, ain’t they. Pooh ! / 

shall never touch ’em. I lent some money on the shop overhead,” 
says Sherrick, pointing to the ceiling (we were in his counting-house 
in the cellar of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel), “ because I thought it 
was a good speculation. And so it was at first. The people liked 
Honeyman. All the nobs came to hear him. Now the speculation 
ain’t so good. He’s used up. A chap can’t be expected to last 
for ever. When I first engaged Mademoiselle Bravura at my theatre, 
you couldn’t get a place for three weeks together. The next year 
she didn’t draw twenty pounds a week. So it was with Pottle, 
and the regular drama hurtibug. At first it was all very well. 
Good business, good houses, our immortal bard, and that sort of 
game. They engaged the tigers and the French riding people over 
the way ; and there was Pottle bellowing away in my place to the 
orchestra and the orders. It’s all a speculation. I’ve speculated 
in about pretty much everything that’s going : in theatres, in joint- 
stock jobs, in building ground, in bills, in gas and insurance com- 
panies, and in this chapel. Poor old Honeyman ! / won’t hurt 


264 


THE NEWCOMES 


him. About that other chap I put in to do the first business — 
that red-haired chap, Rawkins — I think I was wrong. I think he 
injured the property. But I don’t know everything, you know. I 
wasn’t bred to know about parsons — quite the reverse. I thought, 
when I heard Rawkins at Hampstead, he was just the thing. I 
used to go about, sir, just as I did to the provinces, when I had 
the theatre — Camberwell, Islington, Kennington, Clapton, all about, 
and hear the young chaps. Have a glass of sherry ; and here’s 
better luck to Honeyman. As for that Colonel, he’s a trump, sir ! 
I never see such a man. I have to deal with such a precious lot 
of rogues : in the City and out of it, among the swells and all, you 
know, that to see such a fellow refreshes me ; and I’d do anything 
for him. You’ve made a good thing of that Pall Mall Gazette I 
I tried papers too ; but mine didn’t do. I don’t know why. I 
tried a Tory one, moderate Liberal, and out-and-out uncompromising 
Radical. I say, what d’ye think of a religious paper, the Catechism , 
or some such name 1 ? Would Honeyman do as editor] I’m afraid 
it’s all up with the poor cove at the chapel.” And I parted with 
Mr. Sherrick, not a little edified by his talk, and greatly relieved 
as to Honeyman’s fate. The tradesmen of Honeyman’s body were 
appeased ; and as for Mr. Moss, when he found that the curate 
had no effects, and must go before the Insolvent Court, unless 
Moss chose to take the composition which we were empowered 
to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and parted 
with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman’s signa- 
ture. Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive’s 
untimely indignation, who offered at one stage of the proceedings 
to pitch young Moss out of window; but nothing came of this 
“most ungentlebadlike beayviour on Noocob’s part,” further 
than remonstrance and delay in the proceedings ; and Honeyman 
preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesea’s the very next 
Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the spunging-house, 
and Mr. Lazarus said, “If he hadn’t a got out time enough, 
I’d a let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with 
him to show him the way ’ome, you know; for when a gentle- 
man behaves as a gentleman to me, I behave as a gentleman 
to him.” 

Mrs. Ridley’s account, and it was a long one, was paid without 
a single question, or the deduction of a farthing ; but the Colonel 
rather sickened of Honeyman’s expressions of rapturous gratitude, 
and received his professions of mingled contrition and delight very 
coolly. “ My boy,” says the father to Clive, “ you see to what 
straits debt brings a man, to tamper with truth, to have to cheat 
the poor. Think of flying before a washerwoman, or humbling 


THE NEWCOMES 2 65 

yourself to a tailor, or eating a poor man's children’s bread ! ” 
Clive blushed, I thought, and looked rather confused. 

“ 0 father,” says he, “ I — I’m afraid I owe some money too 
— not much ; but about forty pounds, five-and- twenty for cigars, 
and fifteen I borrowed of Pendennis, and — and — I’ve been devilish 
annoyed about it all this time.” 

“ You stupid boy,” says the father, “ I knew about the cigars 
bill, and paid it last week. Anything I have is yours, you know. 
As long as there is a guinea, there is half for you. See that every 
shilling we owe is paid before — before a week is over. And go 
down and ask Binnie if I can see him in his study. I want to have 
some conversation with him.” When Clive was gone away, he said 
to me in a very sweet voice, “ In God’s name, keep my boy out of 
debt when I am gone, Arthur. I shall return to India very soon.” 

“ Very soon, sir ! You have another year’s leave,” said I. 

“Yes, but no allowances, you know ; and this affair of Honey- 
man’s has pretty nearly emptied the little purse I had set aside for 
European expenses. They have been very much heavier than I 
expected. As it is, I overdrew my account at my brothers’, and 
have been obliged to draw money from my agents in Calcutta. A 
year sooner or later (unless two of our senior officers had died, when 
I should have got my promotion and full colonel’s pay with it, and 
proposed to remain in this country) — a year sooner or later, what 
does it matter 1 Clive will go away and work at his art, and see 
the great schools of painting while I am absent. I thought at one 
time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. But Vhomme 
propose, Pendennis. I fancy now a lad is not the better for being 
always tied to his parent’s apron-string. You young fellows are too 
clever for me. I haven’t learned your ideas or read your books. I 
feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go 
back, sir, where I have some friends, and where I am somebody 
still. I know an honest face or two, white and brown, that will 
lighten up in the old regiment when they see Tom Newcome again. 
God bless you, Arthur. You young fellows in this country have 
such cold ways that we old ones hardly know how to like you at 
first. James Binnie and I, when we first came home, used to talk 
you over, and think you laughed at us. But you didn’t, I know. 
God Almighty bless you, and send you a good wife, and make a 
good man of you ! I have bought a watch, which I would like 
you to wear in remembrance of me and my boy, to whom you were 
so kind when you were boys together in the old Grey Friars.” I 
took his hand, and uttered some incoherent words of affection and 
respect. Did not Thomas Newcome merit both from all who knew 
him ? 


266 


THE NEWCOMES 


His resolution being taken, our good Colonel began to make 
silent but effectual preparations for his coming departure. He was 
pleased during these last days of his stay to give me even more of 
his confidence than I had previously enjoyed, and was kind enough 
to say that he regarded me almost as a son of his own, and hoped I 
would act as elder brother and guardian to Clive. Ah ! who is to 
guard the guardian 1 The younger brother had many nobler qualities 
than belonged to the elder. The world had not hardened Clive, 
nor even succeeded in spoiling him. I perceive I am diverging 
from his history into that of another person, and will return to the 
subject proper of the book. 

Colonel Newcome expressed himself as being particularly touched 
and pleased with his friend Binnie’s conduct, now that the Colonel’s 
departure was determined. “ James is one of the most generous of 
men, Pendennis, and I am proud to be put under an obligation to 
him, and to tell it too. I hired this house, as you are aware, of 
our speculative friend Mr. Sherrick, and am answerable for the 
payment of the rent till the expiry of the lease. James has taken 
the matter off my hands entirely. The place is greatly too large 
for him, but he says that he likes it, and intends to stay, and that 
his sister and niece shall be his housekeepers. Clive” — (here, 
perhaps, the speaker’s voice drops a little) — “ Clive will be the son 
of the house still, honest James says, and God bless him ! James 
is richer than I thought by near a lakh of rupees — and here is a 
hint for you, Master Arthur. Mr. Binnie has declared to me in 
confidence, that if his niece, Miss Rosey, shall marry a person of 
whom he approves, he will leave her a considerable part of his 
fortune.” 

The Colonel’s confidant here said that his own arrangements 
were made in another quarter, to which statement the Colonel 
replied knowingly, “ I thought so. A little bird has whispered to 
me the name of a certain Miss A. I knew her grandfather, an 
accommodating old gentleman, and I borrowed some money from 
him when I was a subaltern at Calcutta. I tell you in strict con- 
fidence, my dear young friend, that I hope and trust a certain young 
gentleman of your acquaintance may be induced to think how good 
and pretty and sweet-tempered a girl Miss Mackenzie is, and that 
she may be brought to like him. If you young men would marry 
in good time good and virtuous women — as I am sure — ahem ! 
— Miss Amory is — half the temptations of your youth would be 
avoided. You would neither be dissolute, as many of you seem 
to be, nor cold and selfish, which are worse vices still. And my 
prayer is, that my Clive may cast anchor early out of the reach of 
temptation, and mate with some such kind girl as Binnie’s niece 


THE NEWCOMES 


267 

When I first came home I formed other plans for him, which could 
not be brought to a successful issue; and knowing his ardent dis- 
position, and having kept an eye on the young rogue’s conduct, I 
tremble lest some mischance with a woman should befall him, and 
long to have him out of danger.” 

So the kind scheme of the two elders was, that their young 
ones should marry and be happy ever after, like the Prince and 
Princess of the Fairy Tale ; and dear Mrs. Mackenzie — (have I said 
that at the commencement of her visit to her brother she made 
almost open love to the Colonel'?) — dear Mrs. Mack was content 
to forego her own chances so that her darling Rosey might be 
happy. We used to laugh and say that, as soon as Clive’s father 
was gone, Josey would be sent for to join Kosey. But little Josey, 
being under her grandmother’s sole influence, took a most gratify 
ing and serious turn ; wrote letters, in which she questioned the 
morality of operas, Towers of London, and waxworks ; and, before 
a year was out, married Elder Bogie, of Doctor M ‘Craw’s church. 

Presently was to. be read in the Morning Post an advertisement 
of the sale of three horses (the description and pedigree following), 
“ the property of an officer returning to India. Apply to the groom, 
at the stables, 150 Fitzroy Square.” 

The Court of Directors invited Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome to 
an entertainment given to Major-General Sir Ralph Spurrier, K.C.B., 
appointed Commander-in-Chief at Madras. Clive was asked to this 
dinner too, “ and the governor’s health was drunk, sir,” Clive said, 
“ after dinner, and the dear old fellow made such a good speech in 
returning thanks ! ” 

He, Clive, and I made a pilgrimage to Grey Friars, and had 
the Green to ourselves, it being the Bartlemytide vacation, and the 
boys all away. One of the good old Poor Brothers, whom we both 
recollected, accompanied us round the place ; and we sat for a while 
in Captain Scarsdale’s little room (he had been a Peninsular officer, 
who had sold out, and was fain in his old age to retire into this 
calm retreat). — And we talked, as old schoolmates and lovers talk, 
about subjects interesting to schoolmates and lovers only. 

One by one the Colonel took leave of his friends, young and 
old ; ran down to Newcome, and gave Mrs. Mason a parting bene- 
diction ; slept a night at Tom Smith’s, and passed a day with 
Jack Brown ; went to all the boys’ and girls’ schools where his 
little protdg^s were, so as to be able to take the very last and most 
authentic account of the young folks to their parents in India ; spent 
a week at Marble Head, and shot partridges there, but for which 
entertainment, Clive said, the place would have been intolerable ; 
and thence proceeded to Brighton to pass a little time with good 


268 


THE NEWCOMES 


Miss Honeyraan. As for Sir Brian’s family, when Parliament 
broke up of course they did not stay in town. Barnes, of course, 
had part of a moor in Scotland, whither his uncle and cousin did 
not follow him. The rest went abroad ; Sir Brian wanted the 
waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. The brothers parted very good friends ; 
Lady Ann, and all the young people, heartily wished him farewell. 
I believe Sir Brian even accompanied the Colonel downstairs from 
the drawing-room, in Park Lane, and actually came out and saw 
his brother into his cab (just as he would accompany old Lady 
Bagges when she came to look at her account at the bank, from 
the parlour to her carriage). But as for Ethel, she was not going 
to be put off with this sort of parting; and the next morning a 
cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square, and a veiled lady came out 
thence, and was closeted with Colonel Newcome for five minutes, 
and when he led her back to the carriage there were tears in 
his eyes. 

Mrs. Mackenzie joked about the transaction (having watched 
it from the dining-room windows), and asked the Colonel who his 
sweetheart was? Newcome replied, very sternly, that he hoped no 
one would ever speak lightly of that young lady, whom he loved 
as his own daughter; and I thought Rosey looked vexed at the 
praises thus bestowed. This was the day before we all went down 
to Brighton. Miss Honeyman’s lodgings were taken for Mr. Binnie 
and his ladies. Clive and her dearest Colonel had apartments next 
door. Charles Honeyman came down and preached one of his 
very best sermons. Fred Bayham was there, and looked particu- 
larly grand and noble on the pier and the cliff. I am inclined to 
think he had had some explanation with Thomas Newcome, which 
had placed F. B. in a state of at least temporary prosperity. Whom 
did he not benefit whom he knew, and what eye that saw him did 
not bless him 1 F. B. was greatly affected at Charles’s sermon, of 
which our party of course could see the allusions. Tears actually 
rolled down his brown cheeks; for Fred was a man very easily 
moved, and, as it were, a softened sinner. Little Rosey and her 
mother sobbed audibly, greatly to the surprise of stout old Miss 
Honeyman, who had no idea of such watery exhibitions, and to the 
discomfiture of poor Newcome, who was annoyed to have his 
praises even hinted in that sacred edifice. Good Mr. James Binnie 
came for once to church ; and, however variously their feelings 
might be exhibited or repressed, I think there was not one of the 
little circle there assembled who did not bring to the place a 
humble prayer and a gentle heart. It was the last Sabbath-bell 
our dear friend was to hear for many a day on his native shore. 
The great sea washed the beach as we came out, blue with the 


THE NEWCOMES 


269 

reflection of the skies, and its innumerable waves crested with 
sunshine. I see the good man and his boy yet clinging to him as 
they pace together by the shore. 

The Colonel was very much pleased by a visit from Mr. Ridley, 
and the communication which he made (my Lord Todmorden has 
a mansion and park in Sussex, whence Mr. Kidley came to pay his 
duty to Colonel Newcome). He said he never could forget the 
kindness with which the Colonel have a treated him. His Lord- 
ship have taken a young man, which Mr. Kidley had brought him 
up under his own eye, and can answer for him, Mr. K. says, 
“with impunity; and which he is to be his Lordship’s own man 
for the future. And his Lordship have appointed me his steward, 
and having, as he always hev been, most liberal in point of sellary. 
And me and Mrs. Kidley was thinking, sir, most respectfully, with 
regard to our son, Mr. John James Ridley — as good and honest a 
young man, which I am proud to say it — that if Mr. Clive goes 
abroad we should be most proud and happy if John James went 
with him. And the money which you have paid us so handsome, 
Colonel, he shall have it ; which it was the excellent ideer of Miss 
Cann ; and my Lord have ordered a pictur of John James in the 
most libral manner, and have asked my son to dinner, sir, at his 
Lordship’s own table, which I have faithfully served him five-and- 
thirty years.” Ridley’s voice fairly broke down at this part of his 
speech, which evidently was a studied composition, and he uttered 
no more of it, for the Colonel cordially shook him by the hand ; 
and Clive jumped up clapping his, and saying that it was the 
greatest wish of his heart that J. J. and he should be companions 
in France and Italy. “But I did not like to ask my dear old 
father,” he said, “who has had so many calls on his purse, and 
besides, I knew that J. J. was too independent to come as my 
follower.” 

The Colonel’s berth has been duly secured ere now. This time 
he makes the overland journey ; and his passage is to Alexandria, 
taken in one of the noble ships of the Peninsular and Oriental 
Company. His kit is as simple as a subaltern’s; I believe, but 
for Clive’s friendly compulsion, he would have carried back no 
other than the old uniform which has served him for so many 
years. Clive and his father travelled to Southampton together 
by themselves. F. B. and I took the Southampton coach : we 
had asked leave to see the last of him, and say a “ God bless you ” 
to our dear old friend. So the day came when the vessel was 
to sail. We saw his cabin, and witnessed all the bustle and 
stir on board the good ship on a day of departure. Our thoughts 
however were fixed but on one person — the case, no doubt, with 


270 


THE NEWCOMES 


hundreds more on such a day. There was many a group of friends 
closing wistfully together on the sunny deck, and saying the last 
words of blessing and farewell. The bustle of the ship passes dimly 
round about them ; the hurrying noise of crew and officers running 
on their duty ; the tramp and song of the men at the capstan bars ; 
the bells ringing, as the hour for departure comes nearer and nearer, 
as mother and son, father and daughter, husband and wife, hold 
hands yet for a little while. We saw Clive and his father talking 
together by the wheel. Then they went below ; and a passenger, 
her husband, asked me to give my arm to an almost fainting lady, 
and to lead her off the ship. Bayham followed us, carrying their 
two children in his arms, as the husband turned away, and walked 
aft. The last bell was ringing, and they were crying “Now for 
the shore.” The whole ship had begun to throb ere this, and its 
great wheels to beat the water, and the chimneys had flung out 
their black signals for sailing. We were as yet close on the dock, 
and we saw Clive coming up from below, looking very pale ; the 
plank was drawn after him as he stepped on land. 

Then, with three great cheers from the dock, and from the 
crew in the bows, and from the passengers on the quarter-deck, 
the noble ship strikes the first stroke of her destined race, and 
swims away towards the ocean. “ There he is, there he is ! ” shouts 
Fred Bayham, waving his hat. “ God bless him, God bless him ! ” 
I scarce perceived at the ship’s side, beckoning an adieu, our dear 
old friend, when the lady, whose husband had bidden me to lead 
her away from the ship, fainted in my arms. Poor soul ! Her, 
too, has fate stricken. Ah, pangs of hearts torn asunder, passionate 
regrets, cruel, cruel partings ! Shall you not end one day, ere 
many years ; when the tears shall be wiped from all eyes, and 
there shall be neither sorrow nor pain ? 



!) 


44 


FAREWELL 













CHAPTER XXVII 


YOUTH AND SUNSHINE 

ALTHOUGH Thomas Newcome was gone back to India in 
A search of more money, finding that he could not live upon 
* his income at home, he was nevertheless rather a wealthy 
man; and at the moment of his departure from Europe had two 
lakhs of rupees invested in various Indian securities. “ A thousand 
a year,” he thought, “more, added to the interest accruing from my 
two lakhs, will enable us to live very comfortably at home. I can 
give Clive ten thousand pounds when he marries, and five hundred 
a year out of my allowances. If he gets a wife with some money, 
they may have every enjoyment of life; and as for his pictures, 
he can paint just as few or as many of those as he pleases.” New- 
come did not seem seriously to believe that his son would live by 
painting pictures, but considered Clive as a young prince who chose 
to amuse himself with painting. The Muse of Painting is a lady 
whose social station is not altogether recognised with us as yet. 
The polite world permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her, 
but to take her for better or for worse ! forsake all other chances 
and cleave unto her ! to assume her name ! Many a respectable 
person would be as much shocked at the notion, as if his son had 
married an opera-dancer. 

Newcome left a hundred a year in England, of which the 
principal sum was to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came 
of age. He endowed Clive further with a considerable annual sum, 
which his London bankers would pay : “ And if these are not 
enough,” says he kindly, “ you must draw upon my agents, Messrs. 
Franks and Merryweather, at Calcutta, who will receive your 
signature just as if it were mine.” Before going away, he intro- 
duced Clive to F. and M.’s corresponding London house, Jolly and 
Baines, Fog Court — leading out of Leadenhall — Mr. Jolly, a myth 
as regarded the firm, now married to Lady Julia Jolly — a park in 
Kent — evangelical interest — great at Exeter Hall meetings — knew 
Clive’s grandmother — that is, Mrs. Newcome, a most admirable 
woman. Baines represents a house in the Regent’s Park, with an 
emigrative tendency towards Belgravia — musical daughters — Herr 


272 


THE NEWCOMES 


Moscheles, Benedict, Ella, Osborne, constantly at dinner — sonatas 
in P flat (op. 936), composed and dedicated to Miss Euphemia 
Baines, by her most obliged, most obedient servant, Ferdinando 
Blitz. Baines hopes that his young friend will come constantly to 
York Terrace, where the girls will be most happy to see him ; and 
mentions at home a singular whim of Colonel Newcome’s, who can 
give his son twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and makes an artist 
of him. Euphemia and Flora adore artists ; they feel quite inter- 
ested about this young man. “ He was scribbling caricatures all 
the time I was talking with his father in my parlour,” says Mr. 
Baines, and produces a sketch of an orange- woman near the Bank, 
who had struck Clive’s eyes, and been transferred to the blotting- 
paper in Fog Court. “ He needn’t do anything,” said good-natured 
Mr. Baines. “ I guess all the pictures he’ll paint won’t sell 
for much.” 

“Is he fond of music, papa?” asks miss. “What a pity he 
had not come to our last evening ; and now the season is over ! ” 

“And Mr. Newcome is going out of town. He came to me 
to-day for circular notes — says he’s going through Switzerland and 
into Italy — lives in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Queer place, 
ain’t it 1 Put his name down in your book, and ask him to dinner 
next season.” 

Before Clive went away, he had an apparatus of easels, sketching- 
stools, umbrellas, and painting-boxes, the most elaborate and beau- 
tiful that Messrs. Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J. J.’s 
eyes glisten to see those lovely gimcracks of art; those smooth 
mill-boards, those drab-tinted sketching-blocks, and glistening rows 
of colour- tubes lying in their boxes, which seemed to cry, “ Come, 
squeeze me.” If painting-boxes made painters ; if sketching-stools 
would but enable one to sketch, surely I would hasten this very 
instant to Messrs. Soap and Isaac ! but, alas ! these pretty toys no 
more make artists than cowls make monks. 

As a proof that Clive did intend to practise his profession, and 
to live by it too, at this time he took four sporting sketches to a 
printseller in the Haymarket, and disposed of them at the rate of 
seven shillings and sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiv- 
ing a sovereign and half a sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. 
“ I can do half-a-dozen of these things easily in a morning,” says 
he. “Two guineas a day is twelve guineas — say ten guineas a 
week, for I won’t work on Sundays, and may take a holiday in the 
week besides. Ten guineas a week is five hundred a year. That 
is pretty nearly as much money as I shall want, and I need not 
draw the dear old governor’s allowance at all.” He wrote an ardent 
letter, full of happiness and affection, to the kind father, which he 


THE NEWCOMES 


273 


shall find a month after he has arrived in India, and read to his 
friends in Calcutta and Barrackpore. Clive invited many of his 
artist friends to a grand feast in honour of the thirty shillings. 
The “ King’s Arms,” Kensington, was the hotel selected (tavern 
beloved of artists for many score years !). Gandish was there, and 
the Gandishites and some chosen spirits from the Life Academy, 
Clipstone Street, and J. J. was vice-president, with Fred Bayham 
by his side, to make the speeches and carve the mutton : and I 
promise you many a merry song was sung, and many a health drunk 
in flowing bumpers ; and as jolly a party was assembled as any 
London contained that day. The beau monde had quitted it ; the 
Park was empty as we crossed it ; and the leaves of Kensington 
Gardens had begun to fall, dying after the fatigues of a London 
season. We sang all the way home through Knightsbridge and by 
the Park railings, and the Covent Garden carters halting at the 
“ Half-way House ” were astonished at our choruses. There is no 
half-way house now ; no merry chorus at midnight. 

Then Clive and J. J. took the steamboat to Antwerp; and 
those who love pictures may imagine how the two young men 
rejoiced in one of the most picturesque cities of the world ; where 
they went back straightway into the sixteenth century ; where the 
inn at which they stayed (delightful old “ Grand Laboureur,” thine 
ancient walls are levelled ! thy comfortable hospitalities exist no 
more !) seemed such a hostelry as that where Quentin Durward 
first saw his sweetheart; where knights of Velasquez or burgo- 
masters of Rubens seemed to look from the windows of the tall 
gabled houses and the quaint porches ; where the Bourse still stood, 
the Bourse of three hundred years ago, and you had but to supply 
figures with beards and ruffs, and rapiers and trunk-hose, to make 
the picture complete ; where to be awakened by the carillon of the 
bells was to waken to the most delightful sense of life and happi- 
ness ; where nuns, actual nuns, walked the streets, and every figure 
in the Place de Meir, and every devotee at church kneeling and 
draped in black, or entering the confessional (actually the confes- 
sional !) was a delightful subject for the new sketch-book. Had 
Clive drawn as much everywhere as at Antwerp, Messrs. Soap and 
Isaac might have made a little income by supplying him with 
materials. 

After Antwerp, Clive’s correspondent gets a letter dated from 
the “Hotel de SuMe ” at Brussels, which contains an elaborate 
eulogy of the cookery and comfort of that hotel, where the wines, 
according to the writer’s opinion, are unmatched almost in Europe. 
And this is followed by a description of Waterloo, and a sketch of 
Hougoumont, in which J. J. is represented running away in the 
8 S 


274 


THE NEWCOMES 


character of a French Grenadier, Clive pursuing him in the Life 
Guards habit, and mounted on a thundering charger. 

Next follows a letter from Bonn : verses about Drachenfels of 
a not very superior style of versification ; account of Crichton, an 
old Grey Friars man, who has become a student at the university ; 
of a commerz, a drunken bout; and a students’ duel at Bonn. 
“ And whom should I find here,” says Mr. Clive, “ but Aunt Ann, 
Ethel, Miss Quigley, and the little ones, the whole detachment 
under the command of Kuhn 1 ? Uncle Brian is staying at Aix. 
He is recovered from his attack. And, upon my conscience, I think 
my pretty cousin looks prettier every day. 

“ When they are not in London,” Clive goes on to write, “ or I 
sometimes think when Barnes or old Lady Kew is not looking over 
them, they are quite different. You know how cold they have 
latterly seemed to us, and how their conduct annoyed my dear old 
father. Nothing can be kinder than their behaviour since we have 
met. It was on the little hill at Godesberg, J. J. and I were 
mounting to the ruin, followed by the beggars who waylay you, 
and have taken the place of the other robbers who used to live 
there, when there came a procession of donkeys down the steep, 
and I heard a little voice cry ‘ Hullo ! it’s Clive ! hooray, Clive ! ’ 
and an ass came pattering down the declivity, with a little pair 
of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey’s 
back, and behold there was little Alfred grinning with all his 
might. 

“ He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, 
I suppose to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with 
many kicks, one of which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, 
and we were rubbing him down just as the rest of the party came 
upon us. Miss Quigley looked very grim on an old white pony ; 
my aunt was on a black horse that might have turned grey, he is 
so old. Then came two donkeysful of children, with Kuhn as 
supercargo ; then Ethel on donkey-back too, with a bunch of wild 
flowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson riband, a 
white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a riband of 
the first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet, which 
Kuhn had arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping 
greens in the hedge ; the trees there chequered her white dress and 
face with shadow. Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow too 
— but the light was all upon her right cheek : upon her shoulder 
down to her arm, which was of a warmer white, and on the bunch 
of flowers which she held, blue, yellow, and red poppies, and so 
forth. 

“ J, J. says, ‘ I think the birds began to sing louder when 


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she came.’ We have both agreed that she is the handsomest 
woman in England. It’s not her form merely, which is certainly 
as yet too thin and a little angular — it is her colour. I do not 
care for woman or picture without colour. Oh, ye carnations ! 
Oh, ye lilia mista rosis ! Oh, such black hair and solemn eye- 
brows ! It seems to me the roses and carnations have bloomed 
again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping 
from the exposure to night air, candlelight, and heated ball-rooms. 

“ Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys, bearing a 
crowd of relations ; J. J. standing modestly in the background — 
beggars completing the group, and Kuhn ruling over them with 
voice and gesture, oaths and whip. Throw in the Rhine in the 
distance flashing by the Seven Mountains — but mind and make 
Ethel the principal figure : if you make her like, she certainly will 
be — and other lights will be only minor fires. You may paint her 
form, but you can’t paint her colour; that is what beats us in 
nature. A line must come right; you can force that into its 
place, but you can’t compel the circumambient air. There is no 
yellpw I know of will make sunshine, and no blue that is a bit like 
sky. And so with pictures : I think you only get signs of colour, 
and formulas to stand for it. That brickdust which we agree to 
receive as representing a blush, look at it — can you say it is in 
the least like the blush which flickers and varies as it sweeps 
over the down of the cheek — as you see sunshine playing over a 
meadow 1 ? Look into it and see what a variety of delicate blooms 
there are ! a multitude of flowerets twining into one tint ! We 
may break our colour-pots and strive after the line alone : that is 
palpable and we can grasp it — the other is impossible and beyond 
us.” Which sentiment I here set down, not on account of its 
worth (and I think it is contradicted — as well as asserted — in more 
than one of the letters I subsequently had from Mr. Clive), but it 
may serve to show the ardent and impulsive disposition of this 
youth, by whom all beauties of art and nature, animate or inani- 
mate (the former especially), were welcomed with a gusto and 
delight whereof colder temperaments are incapable. The view of 
a fine landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make 
this harmless young sensualist tipsy with pleasure. He seemed to 
derive an actual hilarity and intoxication as his eye drank in these 
sights ; and, though it was his maxim that all dinners were good, 
and he could eat bread and cheese and drink small beer with perfect 
good-humour, I believe that he found a certain pleasure in a bottle 
of claret, which most men’s systems were incapable of feeling. 

This spring-time of youth is the season of letter- writing. A lad 
in high health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young 


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veins, and the world, and life, and nature bright and welcome to 
him, looks out, perforce, for some companion to whom he may 
impart his sense of the pleasure which he enjoys, and which were 
not complete unless a friend were by to share it. I was the person 
most convenient for the young fellow’s purpose ; he was pleased to 
confer upon me the title of friend en titre and confidant in particular ; 
to endow the confidant in question with a number of virtues and 
excellences which existed very likely only in the lad’s imagination ; 
to lament that the confidant had no sister whom he, Clive, might 
marry out of hand ; and to make me a thousand simple protests of 
affection and admiration, which are noted here as signs of the young 
man’s character, by no means as proofs of the goodness of mine. 
The books given to the present biographer by “his affectionate 
friend, Clive Newcome,” still bear on the title-pages the marks of 
that boyish hand and youthful fervour. He had a copy of “ Walter 
Lorraine ” bound and gilt with such splendour as made the author 
blush for his performance, which has since been seen at the book- 
stalls at a price suited to the very humblest purses. He fired up 
and fought a newspaper critic (whom Clive met at the “ Haiyit ” 
one night) who had dared to write an article in which that work 
was slighted; and if, in the course of nature, his friendship has 
outlived that rapturous period, the kindness of the two old friends, 
I hope, is not the less because it is no longer romantic, and the days 
of white vellum and gilt edges have passed away. From the abund- 
ance of the letters which the affectionate young fellow now wrote, 
the ensuing portion of his youthful history is compiled. It may 
serve to recall passages of their early days to such of his seniors as 
occasionally turn over the leaves of a novel ; and in the story of his 
faults, indiscretions, passions, and actions, young readers may be 
reminded of their own. 

Now that the old Countess, and, perhaps, Barnes, were away, 
the barrier between Clive and this family seemed to be withdrawn. 
The young folks who loved him were free to see him as often as he 
would come. They were going to Baden : would he come too h 
Baden was on the road to Switzerland, he might journey to 
Strasbourg, Basle, and so on. Clive was glad enough to go with 
his cousins, and travel in the orbit of such a lovely girl as Ethel 
Newcome. J. J. performed the second part always when Clive was 
present; and so they all travelled to Coblentz, Mayence, and 
Frankfort together, making the journey which everybody knows, and 
sketching the mountains and castles we all of us have sketched. 
Ethel’s beauty made all the passengers on all the steamers look 
round and admire. Clive was proud of being in the suite of such a 
lovely person. The family travelled with a pair of those carriages 


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277 

which used to thunder along the continental roads a dozen years 
since, and from interior, box, and rumble, discharge a dozen English 
people at hotel gates. 

The journey is all sunshine and pleasure and novelty; the 
circular notes with which Mr. Baines of Fog Court has supplied 
Clive Newcome, Esquire, enabled that young gentleman to travel 
with great ease and comfort. He has not yet ventured upon engag- 
ing a valet de chambre , it being agreed between him and J. J. that 
two travelling artists have no right to such an aristocratic appendage ; 
but he has bought a snug little britzska at Frankfort (the youth 
has very polite tastes, is already a connoisseur in wine, and has no 
scruple in ordering the best at the hotels), and the britzska travels 
in company with Lady Ann’s caravan, either in its wake, so as to 
be out of reach of the dust, or more frequently ahead of that 
enormous vehicle and its tender, in which come the children and the 
governess of Lady Ann Newcome, guarded by a huge and melancholy 
London footman, who beholds Rhine and Neckar, valley and 
mountain, village and ruin, with a like dismal composure. Little 
Alfred and little Egbert are by no means sorry to escape from Miss 
Quigley and the tender, and ride for a stage or two in Clive’s 
britzska. The little girls cry sometimes to be admitted to that 
privilege. I dare say Ethel would like very well to quit her place 
in the caravan, where she sits circumvented by mamma’s dogs, 
and books, bags, dressing-boxes, and gimcrack cases, without which 
apparatus some English ladies of condition cannot travel ; but Miss 
Ethel is grown up, she is out, and has been presented at Court, and 
is a person of too great dignity now to sit anywhere but in the place 
of state in the chariot corner. I like to think, for my part, of the 
gallant young fellow taking his pleasure and enjoying his holiday, 
and few sights are more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly 
English youth, free-handed and generous-hearted, content and good- 
humour shining in his honest face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, 
and thankful for services, and exercising bravely his noble youthful 
privilege to be happy and to enjoy. Sing, cheery spirit, whilst the 
spring lasts : bloom whilst the sun shines, kindly flowers of youth j 
You shall be none the worse to-morrow for having been happy to- 
day, if the day brings no action to shame it. As for J. J., he, too, 
had his share of enjoyment; the charming scenes around him did 
not escape his bright eye ; he absorbed pleasure in his silent way ; 
he was up with the sunrise always, and at work with his eyes and 
his heart if not with his hands. A beautiful object, too, is such a 
one to contemplate : a pure virgin soul, a creature gentle, pious, 
and full of love, endowed with sweet gifts, humble and timid, but 
for truth’s and justice’s sake inflexible, thankful to God and man, 


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fond, patient, and faithful. Clive was still his hero as ever, his 
patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain. Who was so brave, 
who was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive? To hear Clive 
sing, as the lad would whilst they were seated at their work, or 
driving along on this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the 
sunshine, gave J. J. the keenest pleasure ; his wit was a little slow, 
but he would laugh with his eyes at Clive’s sallies, or ponder over 
them and explode with laughter presently, giving a new source of 
amusement to these merry travellers, and little Alfred would laugh 
at J. J.’s laughing; and so, with a hundred harmless jokes to 
enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of Nature to 
cheer and accompany it, the happy day’s journey would come to 
an end. 

So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town 
of all places where Pleasure has set up her tents ; and where the 
gay, the melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or naughty, come 
for amusement, or business, or relaxation ; where London beauties, 
having danced and flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little 
more; where well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world 
assemble; where I have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting 
their wigs and the Temple, trying their luck against fortune and 
M. Bdnazet ; where wistful schemers conspire and prick cards 
down, and deeply meditate the infallible coup ; and try it, and lose 
it, and borrow a hundred francs to go home ; where even virtuous 
British ladies venture their little stakes, and draw up their winnings 
with trembling rakes, by the side of ladies who are not virtuous 
at all, no, not even in name ; where young prodigals break the bank 
sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place which Hercules himself 
could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful countesses and 
princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on their vast 
estates — in Italy, Spain, Piedmont — who knows where their lord- 
ships’ possessions are ? — while trains of suitors surround those 
wandering Penelopes their noble wives ; Russian Boyars, Spanish 
Grandees of the Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes 
Polish and Italian innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with 
their tobacco smoke, and swear in all languages against the Black 
and the Red. The famous English monosyllable by which things, 
persons, luck, even eyes, are devoted to the infernal gods, we may 
be sure is not wanting in that Babel. Where does one not hear it ? 

“ D the luck ! ” says Lord Kew, as the croupier sweeps off his 

Lordship’s rouleaux. “ D the luck ! ” says Brown the bagman, 

who has been backing his Lordship with five-franc pieces. “ Ah, 
body of Bacchus ! ” says Count Felice, whom we all remember a 
courier. “ Ah, sacrd coup ! ” cries M. le Yicomte de Florae, as his 


THE NEWCOMES 279 

last louis parts company from him — each cursing in his native 
tongue. Oh, sweet chorus ! 

That Lord Kew should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard 
of him at the “ Finish,” or at Buckingham Palace ball, or in a 
watch-house, or at the “ Third Cataract,” or at a Newmarket 
meeting, you would not be surprised. He goes everywhere ; does 
everything with all his might ; knows everybody. Last week he 
won who knows how many thousand louis from the bank (it appears 
Brown has chosen one of the unlucky days to back his Lordship). 
He will eat his supper as gaily after a great victory as after a signal 
defeat ; and we know that to win with magnanimity requires much 
more constancy than to lose. His sleep will not be disturbed by 
one event or the other. He will play skittles all the morning with 
perfect contentment, romp with children in the forenoon (he is the 
friend of half the children in the place), or he will cheerfully leave 
the green-table and all the risk and excitement there, to take a 
hand at sixpenny whist with General Fogey, or to give the six 
Misses Fogey a turn each in the ball-room. From H.R.H. the 

Prince Royal of , who is the greatest guest at Baden, down to 

Brown the bagman, who does not consider himself the smallest, 
Lord Kew is hail-fellow with everybody, and has a kind word from 
and for all. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

IN WHICH CLIVE BEGINS TO SEE THE WORLD 


I N the company assembled at Baden Clive found one or two 
old acquaintances ; among them his friend of Paris, M. de 
Florae, not in quite so brilliant a condition as when Newcome 
had last met him on the Boulevard. Florae owned that Fortune 
had been very unkind to him at Baden ; and, indeed, she had not 
only emptied his purse, but his portmanteaus, jewel-box, and linen- 
closet — the contents of all of which had ranged themselves on the 
red and black against Monsieur Bdnazet’s crown pieces : whatever 
side they took was, however, the unlucky one. “This campaign 
has been my Moscow, mon cher ,” Florae owned to Clive. “ I am 
conquered by B^nazet ; I have lost in almost every combat. I have 
lost my treasure, my baggage, my ammunition of war, everything 
but my honour, which, au reste, Monsieur Bdnazet will not accept 
as a stake ; if he would, there are plenty here, believe me, who 
would set it on the Trente-et-Quarante. Sometimes I have had a 
mind to go home; my mother, who is an angel all forgiveness, 
would receive her prodigal, and kill the fatted veal for me. But 
what will you ? He annoys me — the domestic veal. Besides, my 
brother, the Abbd, though the best of Christians, is a Jew upon 
certain matters ; a Bdnazet who will ’not troquer absolution except 
against repentance ; and I have not a sou of repentance in my 
pocket ! I have been sorry, yes — but it was because odd came up 
in place of even, or the reverse. The accursed apres has chased me 
like a remorse, and when black has come up I have wished myself 
converted to red. Otherwise I have no repentance ; I am joueur — 
Nature has made me so, as she made my brother dfoot. The 
Archbishop of Strasbourg is of our parents; I saw his grandeur 
when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my last pilgrimage to the 
Mont de Pidt£ I owned to him that I would pawn his cross and 
ring to go play : the good prelate laughed, and said his chaplain 
should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The 
landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Due 
dTvry, and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not 
abuse his noble confidence. My dear ! there are covers of silver 


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281 


put'on my table every day with which I could retrieve my fortune, 
did I listen to the suggestions of Satanas ; but I say to him, Vade 
retro. Come and dine with me — Duluc’s kitchen is very good.” 

These easy confessions were uttered by a gentleman who was 
nearly forty years of age, and who had indeed played the part of a 
young man in Paris and the great European world so long, that he 
knew or chose to perform no other. He did not want for abilities ; 
had the best temper in the world ; was well bred and gentlemanlike 
always ; and was gay even after Moscow. His courage was known, 
and his character for bravery, and another kind of gallantry pro- 
bably exaggerated by his bad reputation. Had his mother not been 
alive, perhaps he would have believed in the virtue of no woman. 
But this one he worshipped, and spoke with tenderness and enthu- 
siasm of her constant love, and patience, and goodness. “ See her 
miniature ! ” he said, “ I never separate myself from it — oh, never ! 
It saved my life in an affair about — about a woman who was not 
worth the powder which poor Jules and I burned for her. His ball 
struck me here, upon the waistcoat, bruising my rib and sending 
me to my bed, which I never should have left alive but for this 
picture. Oh, she is an angel, my mother ! I am sure that Heaven 
has nothing to deny that saint, and that her tears wash out my 
sins.” 

Clive smiled. “ I think Madame de Florae must weep a good 
deal,” he said. 

“ Enormement , my friend ! My faith ! I do not deny it ! I 
give her cause, night and evening. I am possessed by demons ! 
This little Affenthaler wine of this country has a little smack which 
is most agreeable. The passions tear me, my young friend ! Play 
is fatal, but play is not so fatal as woman. Pass me the ecrevisses , 
they are most succulent. Take warning by me, and avoid both. 
I saw you roder round the green tables, and marked your eyes as 
they glistened over the heaps of gold, and looked at some of our 
beauties of Baden. Beware of such sirens, young man ! and take 
me for your Mentor ; avoiding what I have done — that understands 
itself. You have not played as yet 1 Do not do so ; above all 
avoid a martingale, if you do. Play ought not to be an affair of 
calculation, but of inspiration. I have calculated infallibly, and 
what has been the effect ? Gousset empty, tiroirs empty, ne'cessaire 
parted for Strasbourg ! Where is my fur pelisse, Fr^d^ric 1 ” 

“ Parbleu ! vous le savez bien, Monsieur le Vicomte,” says 
Frdddric, the domestic, who was waiting on Clive and his friend. 

“ A pelisse lined with true sable, and worth three thousand 
francs, that I won of a little Russian at billiards. That pelisse is 
at Strasbourg (where the infamous worms of the Mount of Piety 


282 


THE NEWCOMES 


are actually gnawing her). Two hundred francs and this recon- 
naissance , which F r^d^ric receive, are all that now represents the 
pelisse. How many chemises have I, Fr^d^ric 1 ” 

“Eh, parbleu, Monsieur le Vicomte sait bien que nous avons 
toujours vingt-quatre chemises,” says Frdd^ric, grumbling. 

Monsieur le Yicomte springs up shrieking from the dinner-table. 
“ Twenty-four shirts,” says he, “ and I have been a week without 
a louis in my pocket ! B&itre I Nigaud ! ” He flings open one 
drawer after another, but there are no signs of that superfluity of 
linen of which the domestic spoke, whose countenance now changes 
from a grim frown to a grim smile. 

“ Ah, my faithful Frdddric, I pardon thee ! Mr. Newcome will 
understand thy harmless supercherie. Frdddric was in my company 
of the Guard, and remains with me since. He is Caleb Balderstone 
and I am Ravenswood. Yes, I am Edgar. Let us have coffee and 
a cigar, Balderstone.” 

“ Plait-il, Monsieur le Yicomte ? ” says the French Caleb. 

“ Thou comprehendest not English. Thou readest not Yaltare 
Scott, thou ! ” cries the master. “ I was recounting to Monsieur 
Newcome thy history and my misfortunes. Go seek coffee for us, 
Nigaud” And as the two gentlemen partake of that exhilarating 
liquor, the elder confides gaily to his guest the reason why he prefers 
taking coffee at the Hotel to the coffee at the great Cafd of the 
“ Redoute,” with a duris urge'ns in rebus egestdss ! pronounced in 
the true French manner. 

Clive was greatly amused by the gaiety of the Yiscount after his 
misfortunes and his Moscow ; and thought that one of Mr. Baines’s 
circular notes might not be ill laid out in succouring this hero. It 
may have been to this end that Florae’s confessions tended ; though, 
to do him justice, the incorrigible young fellow would confide his 
adventures to any one who would listen ; and the exact state of his 
wardrobe, and the story of his pawned pelisse, dressing-case, rings, 
and watches, were known to all Baden. 

“You tell me to marry and range myself,” said Clive (to whom 
the Yiscount was expatiating upon the charms of the superbe young 
Anglaise with whom he had seen Clive walking on the promenade). 
“ Why do you not marry and range yourself, too 1 ” 

“ Eh, my dear ! I am married already. You do not know it? 
I am married since the Revolution of July. Yes. We were poor 
in those days, as poor we remain. My cousins the Due d’lvry’s 
sons and his grandson were still alive. Seeing no other resource 
and pursued by the Arabs, I espoused the Vicomtesse de Florae. 
I gave her my name, you comprehend, in exchange for her own 
odious one. She was Miss Higg. Do you know the family Higg 


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283 


of Manchesterre in the comtd of Lancastre ? She was then a 
person of a ripe age. The Vicomtesse is now — ah ! it is fifteen 
years since, and she dies not. Our union was not happy, my friend 
— Madame Paul de Florae is of the reformed religion — not of the 
Anglican Church, you understand — but a dissident, I know not of 
what sort. We inhabited the Hotel de Florae for a while after our 
union, which was all of convenience, you understand. She filled 
her salon with ministers to make you die. She assaulted my poor 
father in his garden-chair, whence he could not escape her. She 
told my sainted mother that she was an idolatress — she who only 
idolatrises her children ! She called us other poor Catholics who 
follow the rites of our fathers, des Romishes ; and Rome, Babylon ; 
and the Holy Father — a scarlet — eh ! a scarlet abomination. She 
outraged my mother, that angel ; essayed to convert the antechamber 
and the office ; put little books in the Abba’s bedroom. Eh, my 
friend ! what a good king was Charles IX., and his mother what a 
wise sovereign ! I lament that Madame de Florae should have 
escaped the St. Barthdlemi, when no doubt she was spared on 
account of her tender age. We have been separated for many 
years ; her income was greatly exaggerated. Beyond the payment 
of my debts I owe her nothing. I wish I could say as much of 
all the rest of the world. Shall we take a turn of promenade 1 
Mauvais sujet ! I see you are longing to be at the green table.” 

Clive was not longing to be at the green table ; but his com- 
panion was never easy at it or away from it. Next to winning, 
losing, M. de Florae said, was the best sport — next to losing, looking 
on. So he and Clive went down to the “ Redoute,” where Lord 
Kew was playing, with a crowd of awe-struck amateurs and breath- 
less punters admiring his valour and fortune ; and Clive, saying that 
he knew nothing about the game, took out five napoleons from his 
purse, and besought Florae to invest them in the most profitable 
manner at roulette. The other made some faint attempts at a 
scruple ; but the money was speedily laid on the table, where it 
increased and multiplied amazingly too ; so that in a quarter of an 
hour Florae brought quite a handful of gold pieces to his principal. 
Then Clive, I dare say blushing as he made the proposal, offered 
half the handful of napoleons to M. de Florae, to be repaid when he 
thought fit. And fortune must have been very favourable to the 
husband of Miss Higg that night ; for in the course of an hour he 
insisted on paying back Clive’s loan ; and two days afterwards 
appeared with his shirt-studs (of course with his shirts also), released 
from captivity, his watch, rings, and chains, on the parade ; and 
was observed to wear his celebrated fur pelisse as he drove back in 
a britzska from Strasbourg. “ As for myself,” wrote Clive, “ I put 


284 


THE NEWCOMES 


back into my purse the five napoleons with which I had begun ; 
and laid down the whole mass of winnings on the table, where it 
was doubled and then quadrupled, and then swept up by the 
croupiers, greatly to my ease of mind. And then Lord Kew asked 
me to supper, and we had a merry night.” 

This was Mr. Clive’s first and last appearance at Baden as a 
gambler. J. J. looked very grave when he heard of these transac- 
tions. Clive’s French friend did not please his English companion 
at all, nor the friends of Clive’s French friend, the Russians, the 
Spaniards, the Italians, of sounding titles and glittering decora- 
tions, and the ladies who belonged to their society. He saw by 
chance Ethel, escorted by her cousin Lord Kew, passing through 
a crowd of this company one day. There was not one woman 
there who was not the heroine of some discreditable story. It 
was the Comtesse Calypso who had been jilted by the Due Ulysse. 
It was the Marquise Ariane to whom the Prince Th^sde had 
behaved so shamefully, and who had taken to Bacchus as a con- 
solation. It was Madame Mddde who had absolutely killed her 
old father by her conduct regarding Jason; she had done every- 
thing for Jason ; she had got him the toison 6? or from the Queen 
Mother, and now had to meet him every day with his little blonde 
bride on his arm ! J. J. compared Ethel, moving in the midst 
of these folks, to the Lady amidst the rout of Comus. There 
they were, the Fauns and Satyrs : there they were, the merry 
Pagans : drinking and dancing, dicing and sporting ; laughing out 
jests that never should be spoken ; whispering rendezvous to be 
written in midnight calendars ; jeering at honest people who passed 
under their palace windows — jolly rebels and repealers of the law. 
Ah, if Mrs. Brown, whose children are gone to bed at the Hotel, 
knew but the history of that calm dignified-looking gentleman 
who sits under her, and over whose patient back she frantically 
advances and withdraws her two-franc piece, whilst his own columns 
of louis-d’or are offering battle to fortune — how she would shrink 
away from the shoulder which she pushes ! That man so calm 
aiid well bred, with a string of orders on his breast, so well 
dressed, with such white hands, has stabbed trusting hearts ; 
severed family ties ; written lying vows ; signed false oaths ; torn 
up pitilessly tender appeals for redress, and tossed away into 
the fire supplications blistered with tears ; packed cards and cogged 
dice; or used pistol or sword as calmly and dexterously as he 
now ranges his battalions of gold pieces. 

Ridley shrank away from such lawless people with the delicacy 
belonging to his timid and retiring nature, but it must be owned 
that Mr. Clive was by no means so squeamish. He did not know. 


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in the first place, the mystery of their iniquities ; and his sunny 
kindly spirit, undimmed by any of the cares which clouded it 
subsequently, was disposed to shine upon all people alike. The 
world was welcome to him ; the day a pleasure ; all nature a gay 
feast ; scarce any dispositions discordant with his own (for pre- 
tension only made him laugh, and hypocrisy he will never be 
able to understand if he lives to be a hundred years old) ; the 
night brought him a long sleep, and the morning a glad waking. 
To those privileges of youth what enjoyments of age are compar- 
able? what achievements of ambition? what rewards of money 
and fame ? Clive’s happy friendly nature shone out of his face ; 
and almost all who beheld it felt kindly towards him. As those 
guileless virgins of romance and ballad, who walk smiling through 
dark forests charming off dragons and confronting lions, the young 
man as yet went through the world harmless ; no giant waylaid 
him as yet; no robbing ogre fed on him; and (greatest danger 
of all for one of his ardent nature) no winning enchantress or 
artful siren coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into her waters 
— haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are 
drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their tender flesh 
devoured. 

The time was short which Clive spent at Baden, for it has been 
said the winter was approaching, and the destination of our young 
artists was Borne; but he may have passed some score of days 
here, to which he and another person in that pretty watering-place 
possibly looked back afterwards as not the unhappiest periods of 
their lives. Among Colonel Newcoine’s papers to which the family 
biographer has had subsequent access, there are a couple of letters 
from Clive, dated Baden, at this time, and full of happiness, gaiety, 
and affection. Letter No. 1 says, “ Ethel is the prettiest girl here. 
At the assemblies all the Princes, Counts, Dukes, Parthians, Medes, 
and Elamites are dying to dance with her. She sends her dearest 
love to her uncle.” By the side of the words “prettiest girl” was 
written in a frank female hand the monosyllable “ Stuff ”; and as 
a note to the expression “dearest love,” with a star to mark the 
text and the note, are squeezed in the same feminine characters at 
the bottom of Clive’s page, the words, “ That I do. E. NT 

In letter No. 2 the first two pages are closely written in Clive’s 
handwriting, describing his pursuits and studies, and giving amusing 
details of the life at Baden and the company whom he met there — 
narrating his rencontre with their Paris friend, M. de Florae, and 
the arrival of the Duchesse d’lvry, Florae’s cousin, whose titles the 
Vicomte will probably inherit. Not a word about Florae’s gambling 
propensities is met with in the letter ; but Clive honestly confesses 


286 


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that he has staked five napoleons, doubled them, quadrupled them, 
won ever so much, lost all again, and come away from the table 
with his original five pounds in his pocket — proposing never to 
play any more. “Ethel,” he concludes, “is looking over my 
shoulder. She thinks me such a delightful creature that she is 
never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best 
of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling du . . .” The 
rest of this important word is not given, but goose is added in the 
female hand. • In the faded ink, on the yellow paper that may 
have crossed and recrossed oceans, that has lain locked in chests 
for years, and buried under piles of family archives, while your 
friends have been dying and your head has grown white — who has 
not disinterred mementoes like these — from which the past smiles 
at you so sadly, shimmering out of Hades an instant but to sink 
back again into the cold shades, perhaps with a faint, faint sound 
as of a remembered tone — a ghostly echo of a once familiar laughter ? 
I was looking, of late, at a wall in the Naples Museum, whereon 
a boy of Herculaneum eighteen hundred years ago had scratched 
with a nail the figure of a soldier. I could fancy the child turning 
round and smiling on me after having done his etching. Which 
of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep 
under ashes lies the Life of Youth, — the careless Sport, the Pleasure 
and Passion, the darling Joy. You open an old letter-box and look 
at your own childish scrawls, or your mother’s letters to you when 
you were at school ; and excavate your heart. Oh me for the day 
when the whole city shall be bare and the chambers unroofed — 
and every cranny visible to the Light above, from the Forum to 
the Lupanar ! 

Ethel takes up the pen. “ My dear uncle,” she says, “ while 
Clive is sketching out of window, let me write to you a line or 
two on his paper, though I know you like to hear no one speak 
but him. I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder, 
looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good-humour. 
Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected ; always gay ; always 
pleased. He draws more and more beautifully every day ; and his 
affection for young Mr. Ridley, who is really a most excellent and 
astonishing young man, and actually a better artist than Clive 
himself, is most romantic, and does your son the greatest credit. 
You will order Clive not to sell his pictures, won’t you ? I know 
it is not wrong, but your son might look higher than to be an 
artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall for him. An artist, 
an organist, a pianist, all these are very good people, but, you know, 
not de notre monde , and Clive ought to belong to it. 

“We met him at Bonn on our way to a great family gathering 


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here ; where, I must tell you, we are assembled for what I call the 
Congress of Baden ! The chief of the house of Kew is here, and 
what time he does not devote to skittles, to smoking cigars, to the 
jeu in the evenings, to Madame d’lvry, to Madame de Cruchecassde, 
and the foreign people (of whom there are a host here of the worst 
kind, as usual), he graciously bestows on me. Lord and Lady 
Dorking are here, with their meek little daughter, Clara Pulleyn ; 
and Barnes is coming. Uncle Hobson has returned to Lombard 
Street to relieve guard. I think you will hear before very long of 
Lady Clara Newcome. Grandmamma, who was to have presided at 
the Congress of Baden, and still, you know, reigns over the house of 
Kew, has been stopped at Kissingen with an attack of rheumatism ; 
I pity poor Aunt Julia, who can never leave her. Here are all our 
news. I declare I have filled the whole page; men write closer 
than we do. I wear the dear brooch you gave me, often and often. 
I think of you always, dear kind uncle, as your affectionate Ethel.” 

Besides roulette and trente-et-quarante, a number of amusing 
games are played at Baden, which are not performed, so to speak, 
sur table. These little diversions and jeux de societe can go on 
anywhere ; in an alley in the park ; in a picnic to this old schloss, 
or that pretty hunting-lodge ; at a tea-table in a lodging-house or 
hotel ; in a ball at the “ Redoute ” ; in the play-rooms, behind the 
backs of the gamblers, whose eyes are only cast upon rakes and 
rouleaux, and red and black ; or on the broad walk in front of the 
Conversation Rooms, where thousands of people are drinking and 
chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the Austrian brass band, 
in the little music pavilion, plays the most delightful mazurkas and 
waltzes. Here the widow plays her black suit and sets her bright 
eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young, as may be. Here 
the artful practitioner, who has dealt in a thousand such games, 
engages the young simpleton with more money than wit ; and know- 
ing his weakness and her skill, we may safely take the odds, and 
back rouge et couleur to win. Here mamma, not having money 
perhaps, but metal more attractive, stakes her virgin daughter 
against Count Fettacker’s forests and meadows ; or Lord Lackland 
plays his coronet, of which the jewels have long since been in pawn, 
against Miss Baggs’s three per cents. And so two or three funny 
little games were going on at Baden amongst our immediate acquaint- 
ance ; besides that vulgar sport round the green table, at which the 
mob, with whom we have little to do, were elbowing each other. 
A hint of these domestic prolusions has been given to the reader in 
the foregoing letter from Miss Ethel Newcome : likewise some 
passions have been in play, of which a modest young English maiden 
could not be aware. Do not, however, let us be too prematurely 


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proud of our virtue. That tariff of British virtue is wonderfully 
organised. Heaven help the society which made its laws ! Gnats 
are shut out of its ports, or not admitted without scrutiny and 
repugnance, whilst herds of camels are let in. The law professes 
to exclude some goods (or bads shall we call them 1 ?) — well, some 
articles of baggage, which are yet smuggled openly under the eyes 
of winking officers, and worn every day without shame. Shame ! 
What is shame? Virtue is very often shameful according to the 
English social constitution, and shame honourable. Truth, if yours 
happens to differ from your neighbour’s, provokes your friend’s cold- 
ness, your mother’s tears, the world’s persecution. Love is not to 
be dealt in, save under restrictions which kill its sweet healthy free 
commerce. Sin in man is so light that scarce the fine of a penny is 
imposed ; while for woman it is so heavy that no repentance can 
wash it out. Ah ! yes ; all stories are old. You proud matrons in 
your Mayfair markets, have you never seen a virgin sold, or sold 
one? Have you never heard of a poor wayfarer fallen among 
robbers, and not a Pharisee to help him? of a poor woman fallen 
more sadly yet, abject in repentance and tears, and a crowd to stone 
her? I pace this broad Baden walk as the sunset is gilding the 
hills round about, as the orchestra blows its merry tunes, as the 
happy children laugh and sport in the alleys, as the lamps of the 
gambling palace are lighted up, as the throngs of pleasure-hunters 
stroll, and smoke, and flirt, and hum : and wonder sometimes, is it 
the sinners who are the most sinful? Is it poor Prodigal yonder 
amongst the bad company, calling black and red and tossing the 
champagne ; or brother Straitlace, that grudges his repentance ? 
Is it downcast Hagar, that slinks away with poor little Ishmael in 
her hand ; or bitter old virtuous Sarah, who scowls at her from my 
demure Lord Abraham’s arm ? 

One day of the previous May, when of course everybody went 
to visit the Water-Colour Exhibitions, Ethel Newcome was taken 
to see the pictures by her grandmother, that rigorous old Lady Kew, 
who still proposed to reign over all her family. The girl had high 
spirit, and very likely hot words had passed between the elder and 
the younger lady ; such as, I am given to understand, will be uttered 
in the most polite families. They came to a piece by Mr. Hunt, 
representing one of those figures which he knows how to paint with 
such consummate truth and pathos — a friendless young girl cowering 
in a doorway, evidently without home or shelter. The exquisite 
fidelity of the details, and the plaintive beauty of the expression 
of the child, attracted old Lady Kew’s admiration, who was an 
excellent judge of works of art ; and she stood for some time looking 
at the rawing, with Ethel by her side. Nothing, in truth, could 


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289 


be more simple or pathetic ; Ethel laughed ; and her grandmother, 
looking up from her stick on which she hobbled about, saw a very 
sarcastic expression in the girl’s eyes. 

“You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose,” 
said Lady Kew 

“ I was not looking at the picture,” said Ethel, still with a 
smile, “ but at the little green ticket in the corner.” 

“ Sold,” said Lady Kew. “ Of course it is sold ; all Mr. Hunt’s 
pictures are sold. There is not one of them here on which you 
won’t see the green ticket. He is a most admirable artist. I 
don’t know whether his comedy or tragedy is the most excellent.” 

“ I think, grandmamma,” Ethel said, “ we young ladies in the 
world, when we are exhibiting, ought to have little green tickets 
pinned on our backs, with ‘ Sold ’ written on them ; it would pre- 
vent trouble and any future haggling, you know. Then at the 
end of the season the owner would come to carry us home.” 

Grandmamma only said, “ Ethel, you are a fool,” and hobbled 
on to Mr. Cattermole’s picture hard by. “ What splendid colour ; 
what a romantic gloom ; what a flowing pencil and dexterous hand ! ” 
Lady Kew could delight in pictures, applaud good poetry, and 
squeeze out a tear over a good novel, too. That afternoon, young 
Dawkins, the rising water-colour artist, who used to come daily 
to the gallery and stand delighted before his own piece, was aghast 
to perceive that there was no green ticket in the corner of the 
frame, and he pointed out the deficiency to the keeper of the pictures. 
His landscape, however, was sold and paid for, so no great mischief 
occurred. On that same evening, when the Newcome family as- 
sembled at dinner in Park Lane, Ethel appeared with a bright 
green ticket pinned in the front of her white muslin frock, and 
when asked what this queer fancy meant, she made Lady Kew 
a curtsey, looking her full in the face, and turning round to her 
father, said, £ I am a tableau-vivant, papa. I am No. 46 in the 
Exhibition of the Gallery of Painters in Water-colours.” 

“ My love, what do you mean ? ” says mamma ; and Lady Kew, 
jumping up on her crooked stick with immense agility, tore the 
card out of Ethel’s bosom, and very likely would have boxed her 
ears, but that her parents were present, and Lord Kew was 
announced. 

Ethel talked about pictures the whole evening, and would talk 
of nothing else. Grandmamma went away furious. “ She told 
Barnes, and when everybody was gone there was a pretty row in 
the building,” said Madam Ethel, with an arch look, when she 
narrated the story. “ Barnes was ready to kill me and eat me ; 
but I never was afraid of Barnes.” And the biographer gathers 
8 T 


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from this little anecdote narrated to him, never mind by whom, at 
a long subsequent period, that there had been great disputes in Sir 
Brian Newcome’s establishment, fierce drawing-room battles, whereof 
certain pictures of a certain painter might have furnished the cause, 
and in which Miss Newcome had the whole of the family forces 
against her. That such battles take place in other domestic estab- 
lishments, who shall say or shall not say? Who, when he goes 
out to dinner, and is received by a bland host with a gay shake of 
the hand, and a pretty hostess with a gracious smile of welcome, 
dares to think that Mr. Johnson upstairs, half-an-hour before, was 
swearing out of his dressing-room at Mrs. Johnson, for having 
ordered a turbot instead of a salmon, or that Mrs. Johnson, now 
talking to Lady Jones so nicely about their mutual darling children, 
was crying her eyes out as her maid was fastening her gown, as the 
carriages were actually driving up ? The servants know these things, 
but not we in the dining-room. Hark, with what a respectful tone 
Johnson begs the clergyman present to say grace ! 

Whatever these family quarrels may have been, let bygones be 
bygones, and let us be perfectly sure, that to whatever purpose 
Miss Ethel Newcome, for good or evil, might make up her mind, 
she had quite spirit enough to hold her own. She chose to be 
Countess of Kew because she chose to be Countess of Kew ; had 
she set her heart on marrying Mr. Kuhn, she would have had her 
way, and made the family adopt it, and called him dear Fritz, as 
by his godfathers and godmothers, in his baptism, Mr. Kuhn was 
called. Clive was but a fancy, if he had even been so much as 
that, not a passion, and she fancied a pretty four-pronged coronet 
still more. 

So that the diatribe wherein we lately indulged, about the 
selling of virgins, by no means applies to Lady Ann Newcome, 
who signed the address to Mrs. Stowe, the other day, along with 
thousands more virtuous British matrons ; but should the reader 
haply say, “Is thy fable, 0 Poet, narrated concerning Tancred 
Pulleyn, Earl of Dorking, and Sigismunda, his wife ? ” the reluctant 
moralist is obliged to own that the cap does fit those noble per- 
sonages, of whose lofty society you will however see but little. 

For though I would like to go into an Indian Brahmin’s house 
and see the punkahs and the purdahs and tattys, and the pretty 
brown maidens with great eyes, and great nose-rings, and painted 
foreheads, and slim waists cased in Cashmere shawls, kincob scarfs, 
curly slippers, gilt trousers, precious anklets and bangles ; and have 
the mystery of Eastern existence revealed to me (as who would not 
who has read the “ Arabian Nights ” in his youth ?), yet I would 
not choose the moment when the Brahmin of the house was dead, 


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291 

his women howling, his priests doctoring the child of a widow, now 
frightening her with sermons, now drugging her with bang, so as to 
push her on his funeral pile at last, and into the arms of that car- 
case, stupefied, but obedient and decorous. And though I like to 
walk, even in fancy, in an earl’s house, splendid, well ordered, where 
there are feasts and fine pictures, and fair ladies, and endless books, 
and good company; yet there are times when the visit is not 
pleasant ; and when the parents in that fine house are getting ready 
their daughter for sale, and frightening away her tears with threats, 
and stupefying her grief with narcotics, praying her and imploring 
her, and dramming her and coaxing her, and blessing her, and 
cursing her, perhaps, till they have brought her into such a state as 
shall fit the poor young thing for that deadly couch upon which 
they are about to thrust her, — when my lord and lady are so 
engaged I prefer not to call at their mansion, No. 1000 in 
Grosvenor Square, but to partake of a dinner of herbs rather than of 
that stalled ox which their cook is roasting whole. There are some 
people who are not so squeamish. The family comes of course ; the 
most reverend the Lord Arch-Brahmin of Benares will attend the 
ceremony ; there will be flowers, and lights, and white favours ; and 
quite a string of carriages up to the pagoda ; and such a breakfast 
afterwards; and music in the street and little parish boys hurrahing; 
and no end of speeches within and tears shed (no doubt), and his 
grace the Arch-Brahmin will make a highly appropriate speech (just 
with a faint scent of incense about it, as such a speech ought to 
have), and the young person will slip away unperceived, and take 
off her veils, wreaths, orange flowers, bangles, and finery, and will 
put on a plain dress more suited for the occasion, and the house 
door will open — and there comes the suttee in company of the 
body : yonder the pile is waiting on four wheels with four horses, 
the crowd hurrahs, and the deed is done. 

This ceremony amongst us is so stale and common that, to 
be sure, there is no need to describe its rites, and as women sell 
themselves for what you call an establishment every day, to the 
applause of themselves, their parents, and the world, why on earth 
should a man ape at originality, and pretend to pity them? Never 
mind about the lies at the altar, the blasphemy against the godlike 
name of love, the sordid surrender, the smiling dishonour. What 
the deuce does a mariage de convenance mean but all this, and 
are not such sober Hymeneal torches more satisfactory often than 
the most brilliant love-matches that ever flamed and burnt out? 
Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is laughing : let 
us pity the agonised duchess when her daughter, Lady Atalanta, 
runs away with the doctor — of course, that’s respectable; let us 


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pity Lady Iphigenia’s father when that venerable chief is obliged 
to offer up his darling child ; but it is over her part of the business 
that a decorous painter would throw the veil now. Her ladyship’s 
sacrifice is performed, and the less said about it the better. 

Such was the case regarding an affair which appeared in due 
subsequence in the newspapers not long afterwards under the 
fascinating title of “Marriage in High Life,” and which was in 
truth the occasion of the little family Congress of Baden which we 
are now chronicling. We all know, — everybody, at least, who 
has the slightest acquaintance with the army list, — that, at the 
commencement of their life, my Lord Kew, my Lord Viscount 
Rooster (the Earl of Dorking’s eldest son), and the Honourable 
Charles Belsize, familiarly called Jack Belsize, were subaltern officers 
in one of his Majesty’s regiments of cuirassier guards. They heard 
the chimes at midnight like other young men, they enjoyed their 
fun and frolics as gentlemen of spirit will do ; sowing their wild 
oats plentifully, and scattering them with boyish profusion. Lord 
Ivew’s luck had blessed him with more sacks of oats than fell to 
the lot of his noble young companions. Lord Dorking’s house is 
known to have been long impoverished ; an excellent informant, 
Major Pendennis, has entertained me with many edifying accounts 
of the exploits of Lord Rooster’s grandfather “ with the wild Prince 
and Poins,” of his feats in the hunting-field, over the bottle, over 
the dice-box. He played two nights and two days at a sitting with 
Charles Fox, when they both lost sums awful to reckon. He 
played often with Lord Steyne, and came away, as all men did, 
dreadful sufferers from those midnight encounters. His descendants 
incurred the penalties of the progenitor’s imprudence, and Chanti- 
clere, though one of the finest castles in England, is splendid but 
for a month in the year. The estate is mortgaged up to the 
very castle windows. “Dorking cannot cut a stick or kill a buck 
in his own park,” the good old Major used to tell with tragic 
accents ; “ he lives by his cabbages, grapes, and pineapples, and 
the fees which people give for seeing the place and gardens, which 
are still the show of the county, and among the most splendid in 
the island. When Dorking is at Chanticlere, Ballard, who married 
his sister, lends him the plate and sends three men with it. Four 
cooks inside, and four maids and six footmen on the roof, with a 
butler driving, come down from London in a trap, and wait the 
month. And as the last carriage of the company drives away, the 
servants’ coach is packed, and they all bowl back to town again. 
It’s pitiable, sir, pitiable.” 

In Lord Kew’s youth, the names of himself and his two noble 
friends appeared on innumerable slips of stamped paper, conveying 


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293 


pecuniary assurances of a promissory nature ; all of which promises 
my Lord Kew singly and most honourably discharged. Neither 
of his two companions in arms had the means of meeting these 
engagements. Ballard, Rooster’s uncle, was said to make his 
Lordship some allowance. As for Jack Belsize ; how he lived; 
how he laughed ; how he dressed himself so well, and looked so 
fat and handsome ; how he got a shilling to pay for a cab or a 
cigar ; what ravens fed him ; was a wonder to all. The young 
men claimed kinsmanship with one another, which those who are 
learned in the peerage may unravel. 

When Lord Dorking’s eldest daughter married the Honourable 
and Venerable Dennis Gallowglass, Archdeacon of Ballintubber (and 
at present Viscount Gallowglass and Killbrogue, and Lord Bishop 
of Ballyshannon), great festivities took place at Chanticlere, whither 
the relatives of the high contracting parties were invited. Among 
them came poor Jack Belsize, and hence the tears which are 
dropping at Baden at this present period of our history. Clara 
Pulley n was then a pretty little maiden of sixteen, and Jack a 
handsome guardsman of six or seven and twenty. As she had 
been especially warned against Jack as a wicked young rogue, 
whose antecedents were woefully against him ; as she was never 
allowed to sit near him at dinner, or to walk with him, or to 
play at billiards with him, or to waltz with him ; as she was 
scolded if he spoke a word to her, or if he picked up her glove, 
or touched her hand in a round game, or if she caught him when 
they were playing at blind-man’s buff; as they neither of them 
had a penny in the world, and were both very good-looking, of 
course Clara was always catching Jack at blind-man’s buff; con- 
stantly lighting upon him in the shrubberies or corridors, &c. 
&c. &c. She fell in love (she was not the first) with Jack’s 
broad chest and thin waist; she thought his whiskers, as indeed 
they were, the handsomest pair in all his Majesty’s Brigade 
of Cuirassiers. 

We know not what tears were shed in the vast and silent 
halls of Chanticlere, when the company were gone, and the four 
cooks, and four maids, six footmen, and temporary butler had 
driven back in their private trap to the metropolis, which is not 
forty miles distant from that splendid castle. How can we tell? 
The guests departed, the lodge gates shut ; all is mystery : — dark- 
ness with one pair of wax candles blinking dismally in a solitary 
chamber; all the rest dreary vistas of brown hollands, rolled 
Turkey carpets, gaunt ancestors on the walls scowling out of the 
twilight blank. The imagination is at liberty to depict his Lord- 
ship, with one candle, over his dreadful endless tapes and papers ; 


294 


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her Ladyship with the other, and an old, old novel, wherein, 
perhaps, Mrs. Radcliffe describes a castle as dreary as her own ; 
and poor little Clara sighing and crying in the midst of these 
funereal splendours, as lonely and heart-sick as Oriana in her 
moated grange : — poor little Clara ! 

Lord Kew’s drag took the young men to London; his Lord- 
ship driving, and the servants sitting inside. Jack sat behind 
with the two grooms, and tooted on a cornet-k-piston in the most 
melancholy manner. He partook of no refreshment on the road. 
His silence at his club was remarked; smoking, billiards, military 
duties, and this and that, roused him a little, and presently Jack 
was alive again. But then came the season, Lady Clara Pulleyn’s 
first season in London, and Jack was more alive than ever. There 
was no ball he did not go to ; no opera (that is to say, no opera 
of certain operas) which he did not frequent. It was easy to 
see by his face, two minutes after entering a room, whether the 
person he sought was there or absent : not difficult for those who 
were in the secret to watch in another pair of eyes the bright 
kindling signals which answered Jack’s fiery glances. Ah ! how 
beautiful he looked on his charger on the birthday, all in a blaze 
of scarlet, and bullion, and steel. 0 Jack ! tear her out of yon 
carriage, from the side of yonder livid, feathered, painted, bony 
dowager! place her behind you on the black charger; cut down 
the policeman, and away with you ! The carriage rolls in through 
St. James’s Park; Jack sits alone with his sword dropped to the 
ground, or only atra cura on the crupper behind him ; and Snip, 
the tailor, in the crowd thinks it is for fear of him Jack’s head 
droops. Lady Clara Pulleyn is presented by her mother, the 
Countess of Dorking; and Jack is arrested that night as he is 
going out of White’s to meet her at the Opera. 

Jack’s little exploits are known in the Insolvent Court, where 
he made his appearance as Charles Belsize, commonly called the 
Honourable Charles Belsize, whose dealings were smartly chronicled 
by the indignant moralists of the press of those days. The Scourge 
flogged him heartily. The Whip (of which the accomplished editor 
was himself in Whitecross Street Prison) was especially virtuous 
regarding him ; and the Penny Voice of Freedom gave him an 
awful dressing. I am not here to scourge sinners ; I am true to 
my party ; it is the other side this humble pen attacks ; let us 
keep to the virtuous and respectable, for as for poor sinners they 
get the whipping-post every day. One person was faithful to 
poor Jack through all his blunders and follies, and extravagance 
and misfortunes, and that was the pretty young girl of Chanticlere, 
round whose young affections his luxuriant whiskers had curled. 


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2 95 


And the world may cry out at Lord Kew for sending his brougham 
to the Queen’s Bench prison, and giving a great feast at Grignon’s 
to J ack on the day of his liberation, but I for one will not quarrel 
with his Lordship. He and many other sinners had a jolly night. 
They said Kew made a fine speech, in hearing and acknowledging 
which Jack Belsize wept copiously. Barnes Newcome was in a 
• rage at Jack’s manumission, and sincerely hoped Mr. Commissioner 
would give him a couple of years longer; and cursed and swore 
with a great liberality on hearing of his liberty. 

That this poor prodigal should marry Clara Pulleyn, and, by 
way of a dowry, lay his schedule at her feet, was out of the ques- 
tion. His noble father Lord Highgate was furious against him ; 
his eldest brother would not see him ; he had given up all hopes of 
winning his darling prize long ago ; and one day there came to him 
a great packet bearing the seal of Chanticlere, containing a wretched 
little letter signed C. P., and a dozen sheets of Jack’s own clumsy 
writing, delivered who knows how, in what crush rooms, quadrilles, 
bouquets, balls, and in which were scrawled Jack’s love, and passion, 
and ardour. How many a time had he looked into the dictionary 
at White’s to see whether eternal was spelt with an e, and adore 
with one d or two ! There they were, the incoherent utterances 
of his brave longing heart ; and those two wretched, wretched lines 
signed C., begging that C.’s little letters might, too, be returned or 
destroyed. To do him justice he burnt them loyally every one 
along with his own waste paper. He kept not one single little 
token which she had given him, or let him take. The rose, the 
glove, the little handkerchief which she had dropped to him, how 
he cried over them ! The ringlet of golden hair — he burnt them 
all, all in his own fire in the prison, save a little bit of the hair, 
which might be any one’s, which was the colour of his sister’s. Kew 
saw the deed done; perhaps he hurried away when Jack came to 
the very last part of the sacrifice, and flung the hair into the fire, 
where he would have liked to fling his heart and his life too. 

So Clara was free, and the year when Jack came out of prison 
and went abroad, she passed the season in London, dancing about 
night after night, and everybody said she was well out of that silly 
affair with Jack Belsize. It was then that Barnes Newcome, Esq., 
a partner of the wealthy banking firm of Hobson Brothers and 
Newcome, son and heir of Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, Bart., 
and M.P., descended in right line from Bryan de Newcomyn, slain 
at Hastings, and barber-surgeon to Edward the Confessor, &c. &c., 
cast the eyes of regard on the Lady Clara Pulleyn, who was a little 
pale and languid certainly, but had blue eyes, a delicate skin, and 
a pretty person, and knowing her previous history as well as you 


296 THE NEWCOMES 

who have just perused it, deigned to entertain matrimonial intentions 
towards her Ladyship. 

Not one of the members of these most respectable families, 
excepting poor little Clara perhaps, poor little fish (as if she had 
any call but to do her duty, and to ask a quelle sauce elle serait 
mangle), protested against this little affair of traffic ; Lady Dorking 
had a brood of little chickens to succeed Clara. There was little 
Hennie, who was sixteen, and Biddy, who was fourteen, and 
Adelaide, and who knows how many more. How could she refuse 
a young man, not very agreeable, it is true, nor particularly amiable, 
nor of good birth, at least on his father’s side, but otherwise eligible, 
and heir to so many thousands a year'? The Newcomes, on their 
side, think it a desirable match. Barnes, it must be confessed, is 
growing rather selfish, and has some bachelor ways which a wife 
will reform. Lady Kew is strongly for the match. With her own 
family interest, Lord Steyne and Lord Kew, her nephew’s, and 
Barnes’s own father-in-law, Lord Dorking, in the Peers, why shall 
not the Newcomes sit there too, and resume the old seat which all 
the world knows they had in the time of Richard III. ? Barnes and 
his father had got up quite a belief about a Newcome killed at 
Bosworth, along with King Richard, and hated Henry VII. as an 
enemy of their noble race. So all the parties were pretty well 
agreed. Lady Ann wrote rather a pretty little poem about welcom- 
ing the white Fawn to the Newcome Bowers, and “ Clara ” was 
made to rhyme with “ fairer,” and “ timid does and antlered deer 
to dot the glades of Chanticlere,” quite in a picturesque way. 
Lady Kew pronounced that the poem was very pretty indeed. 

The year after Jack Belsize made his foreign tour he returned to 
London for the season. Lady Clara did not happen to be there : her 
health was a little delicate, and her kind parents took her abroad ; 
so all things went on very smoothly and comfortably indeed. 

Yes, but when things were so quiet and comfortable, when the 
ladies of the two families had met at the Congress of Baden, and 
liked each other so much ; when Barnes and his papa the Baronet, 
recovered from his illness, were actually on their journey from 
Aix-la-Chapelle, and Lady Kew in motion from Kissingen to the 
Congress of Baden : why on earth should Jack Belsize, haggard, 
wild, having been winning great sums, it was said, at Hombourg, 
forsake his luck there, and run over frantically to Baden 1 He wore 
a great thick beard, a great slouched hat — he looked like nothing 
more or less than a painter or an Italian brigand. Unsuspecting 
Clive, remembering the jolly dinner which Jack had procured for 
him at the Guards’ mess in St. James’s, whither Jack himself came 
from the Horse Guards — simple Clive, seeing Jack enter the town, 


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297 

hailed him cordially, and invited him to dinner, and Jack accepted, 
and Clive told him all the news he had of the place, how Kew 
was there, and Lady Ann Newcome, and Ethel ; and Barnes was 
coming. “I am not very fond of him either,” says Clive, smiling, 
when Belsize mentioned his name. So Barnes was coming to marry 
that pretty little Lady Clara Pulleyn. The knowing youth ! I 
dare say he was rather pleased with his knowledge of the fashion- 
able world, and the idea that Jack Belsize would think he, too, 
was somebody. 

Jack drank an immense quantity of champagne, and the dinner 
over, as they could hear the band playing from Clive’s open windows 
in the snug clean little “Hotel de France,” Jack proposed they 
should go on the promenade. M. de Florae was of the party ; he 
had been exceedingly jocular when Lord Kew’s name was mentioned, 
and said, “ Ce petit Kiou ! M. le Due d’lvry, mon oncle, l’honore 
d’une amitid toute particulikre.” These three gentlemen walked out; 
the promenade was crowded, the band was playing “ Home, sweet 
Home ” very sweetly, and the very first persons they met on the 
walk were the Lords of Kew and Dorking, on the arm of which 
latter venerable peer his daughter Lady Clara was hanging. 

Jack Belsize, in a velvet coat, with a sombrero slouched over his 
face, with a beard reaching to his waist, was, no doubt, not recog- 
nised at first by the noble Lord of Dorking, for he was greeting the 
other two gentlemen with his usual politeness and affability : when, 
of a sudden, Lady Clara looking up, gave a little shriek and fell down 
lifeless on the gravel-walk. Then the old earl recognised Mr. Belsize, 
and Clive heard him say, “You villain, how dare you come here ? ” 

Belsize had flung himself down to lift up Clara, calling her franti- 
cally by her name, when old Dorking sprang to seize him. 

“ Hands off, my Lord,” said the other, shaking the old man from 
his back. “ Confound you, Jack, hold your tongue ! ” roars out 
Kew. Clive runs for a chair, and a dozen were forthcoming. Florae 
skips back with a glass of water. Belsize runs towards the awaken- 
ing girl ; and the father, for an instant losing all patience and self- 
command, trembling in every limb, lifts his stick, and says again, 
“Leave her, you ruffian.” “Lady Clara has fainted again, sir,” 
says Captain Belsize. “I am staying at the ‘ Hotel de France.’ 
If you touch me, old man” (this in a very low voice), “by Heaven, 

I shall kill you. I wish you good-morning ; ” and taking a last long 
look at the lifeless girl, he lifts his hat and walks away. Lord Dorking 
mechanically takes his hat off, and stands stupidly gazing after him. 
He beckoned Clive to follow him, and a crowd of the frequenters 
of the place are by this time closed round the fainting young lady. 

Here was a pretty incident in the Congress of Baden ! 


CHAPTER XXIX 

IN WHICH BARNES COMES A-WOOING 
THEL had all along known that her holiday was to be a short 



one, and that, her papa and Barnes arrived, there was to be 


^ no more laughing and fun, and sketching and walking with 
Clive ; so she took the sunshine while it lasted, determined to bear 
with a stout heart the bad weather. 

Sir Brian Newcome and his eldest born arrived at Baden on 
the very night of Jack Belsize’s performance upon the promenade ; 
of course it was necessary to inform the young bridegroom of the 
facts. His acquaintances of the public, who by this time know 
his temper, and are acquainted with his language, can imagine the 
explosions of the one and the vehemence of the other ; it was a 
perfect feu d’ artifice of oaths which he sent up. Mr. Newcome 
only fired off these volleys of curses when he was in a passion, but 
then he was in a passion very frequently. 

As for Lady Clara’s little accident, he was disposed to treat 
that very lightly. “ Poor dear Clara, of course, of course,” he 
said, “ she’s been accustomed to fainting-fits ; no wonder she was 
agitated on the sight of that villain, after his infernal treatment 
of her. If I had been there ” (a volley of oaths comes here along 
the whole line) “ I should have strangled the scoundrel ; I should 
have murdered him.” 

“ Mercy, Barnes ! ” cries Lady Ann. 

“ It was a mercy Barnes was not there,” says Ethel gravely ; 
“ a fight between him and Captain Belsize would have been awful 
indeed.” 

“I am afraid of no man, Ethel,” says Barnes fiercely, with 
another oath. 

“Hit one of your own size, Barnes,” says Miss Ethel (who 
had a number of school phrases from her little brothers, and used 
them on occasions skilfully). “ Hit Captain Belsize, he has got 
no friends.” 

As Jack Belsize from his height and strength was fitted to 
be not only an officer but actually a private in his former gallant 
regiment, and brother Barnes was but a puny young gentleman, 


THE NEWCOMES 


m 

the idea of a personal conflict between them was rather ridiculous. 
Some notion of this sort may have passed through Sir Brian’s mind, 
for the Baronet said with his usual solemnity, “It is the cause, 
Ethel, ^it is the cause, my dear, which gives strength ; in such a 
cause as Barnes’s, with a beautiful young creature to protect from 
a villain, any man would be strong, any man would be strong.” 
“ Since his last attack,” Barnes used to say, “ my poor old governor 
is exceedingly shaky, very groggy about the head;” which was 
the fact. Barnes was already master at Newcome and the bank, 
and awaiting with perfect composure the event which was to place 
the blood-red hand of the Newcome baronetcy on his own brougham. 

Casting his eyes about the room, a heap of drawings, the work 
of a well-known hand which he hated, met his eye : there were a 
half-dozen sketches of Baden ; Ethel on horseback again ; the chil- 
dren and the dogs just in the old way. “ D him, is he here ? ” 

screams out Barnes. “ Is that young pot-house villain here ? and 
hasn’t Kew knocked his head off? Clive Newcome is here, sir,” 
he cries out to his father. “ The Colonel’s son. I have no doubt 
they met by ” 

“ By what, Barnes 1 ” says Ethel. 

“ Clive is here, is he ? ” says the Baronet ; “ making caricatures, 
hey ? You did not mention him in your letters, Lady Ann.” 

Sir Brian was evidently very much touched by his last attack. 

Ethel blushed : it was a curious fact, that there had been no 
mention of Clive in the ladies’ letters to Sir Brian. 

“ My dear, we met him by the merest chance, at Bonn, travel- 
ling with a friend of his ; and he speaks a little German, and was 
very useful to us, and took one of the boys in his britzska the 
whole way.” 

“ Boys always crowd in a carriage,” says Sir Brian ; “ kick your 
shins; always in the way. I remember, when we used to come 
in the carriage from Clapham, when we were boys, I used to kick 
my brother Tom’s shins. Poor Tom, he was a devilish wild fellow 
in those days. You don’t recollect Tom, my Lady Ann ? ” 

Further anecdotes from Sir Brian are interrupted by Lord 
Kew’s arrival. “How d’ye do, Kew 1 ?” cries Barnes. “How’s 
Clara 1” and Lord Kew, walking up with great respect to shake 
hands with Sir Brian, says, “ I am glad to see you looking so 
well, sir,” and scarcely takes any notice of Barnes. That Mr. 
Barnes Newcome was an individual not universally beloved, is a 
point of history of which there can be no doubt. 

“ You have not told me how Clara is, my good fellow,” con 
tinues Barnes. “I have heard all about her meeting with that 
villain, Jack Belsize.” 


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“ Don’t call names, my good fellow,” says Lord Kew. “ It 
strikes me you don’t know Belsize well enough to call him by 
nicknames or by other names. Lady Clara Pulleyn, I believe, is 
very unwell indeed.” 

“ Confound the fellow ! How dared he to come here ? ” cries 
Barnes, backing from this little rebuff. 

“ Dare is another ugly word. I would advise you not to use 
it to the fellow himself.” 

“What do you mean?” says Barnes, looking very serious in an 
instant. 

“ Easy, my good friend. Not so very loud. It appears, Ethel, 
that poor J ack — I know him pretty well, you see, Barnes, and may 
call him by what names I like — had been dining to-day with 
cousin Clive; he and M. de Florae; and that they went with 
Jack to the promenade, not in the least aware of Mr. Jack Belsize’s 
private affairs, or of the shindy that was going to happen.” 

“ By Jove, he shall answer for it ! ” cries out Barnes, in a loud 
voice. 

“I dare say he will, if you ask him,” says the other drily; 
“ but not before ladies. He’d be afraid of frightening them. Poor 
Jack was always as gentle as a lamb before women. I had some talk 
with the Frenchman just now,” continued Lord Kew gaily, as if 
wishing to pass over this side of the subject. “ ‘ Mi Lord Kiou,’ 
says he, ‘ we have made your friend Jack to hear reason. He is a 
little fou, your friend Jack. He drank champagne at dinner like 
an ogre. How is the charmante Miss Clara?’ Florae, you see, 
calls her Miss Clara, Barnes ; the world calls her Lady Clara. You 
call her Clara. You happy dog, you.” 

“ I don’t see why that infernal yoimg cub of a Clive is always 
meddling in our affairs,” cries out Barnes, whose rage was perpetu- 
ally being whipped into new outcries. “Why has he been about 
this house ? Why is he here ? ” 

“ It is very well for you that he was, Barnes,” Lord Kew said. 
“The young fellow showed great temper and spirit. There has 
been a famous row, but don’t be alarmed, it is all over. It is all 
over, everybody may go to bed and sleep comfortably. Barnes 
need not get up . in the morning to punch Jack Belsize’s head. 
I’m sorry for your disappointment, you Fenchurch Street fire-eater. 
Come away. It will be but proper, you know, for a bridegroom- 
elect to go and ask news of la charmante Miss Clara.” 

“ As we went out of the house,” Lord Kew told Clive, “ I said 
to Barnes, that every word I had uttered upstairs with regard to the 
reconciliation was a lie. That Jack Belsize was determined to have 
his blood, and was walking under the lime-trees by which we had 


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301 


to pass with a thundering big stick. You should have seen the state 
the fellow was in, sir. The sweet youth started back, and turned 
as yellow as a cream cheese. Then he made a pretext to go into 
his room, and said it was for his pocket-handkerchief, but I know 
it was for a pistol ; for he dropped his hand from my arm into his 
pocket every time I said ‘Here’s Jack,’ as we walked down the 
avenue to Lord Dorking’s apartment.” 

A great deal of animated business has been transacted during 
the two hours subsequent to poor Lady Clara’s mishap. Clive and 
Belsize had returned to the former’s quarters, while gentle J. J. 
was utilising the last rays of the sun to tint a sketch which he 
had made during the morning. He fled to his own apartment on 
the arrival of the fierce-looking stranger, whose glaring eyes, pallid 
looks, shaggy beard, clutched hands and incessant gasps and mutter- 
ings as he strode up and down, might well scare a peaceable person. 
Very terrible must Jack have looked as he trampled those boards 
in the growing twilight, anon stopping to drink another tumbler of 
champagne, then groaning expressions of inarticulate wrath, and 
again sinking down on Clive’s bed with a drooping head and break- 
ing voice, crying, “ Poor little thing, poor little devil ! ” 

“ If the old man sends me a message, you will stand by me, 
won’t you, Newcome ? He was a fierce old fellow in his time, and 
I have seen him shoot straight enough at Chanticlere. I suppose 
you know what the affair is about ? ” 

“ I never heard of it before, but I think I understand,” says 
Clive gravely. 

“ I can’t ask Kew ; he is one of the family ; he is going to 
marry Miss Newcome. It is no use asking him.” 

All Clive’s blood tingled at the idea that any man was going to 
marry Miss Newcome. He knew it before — a fortnight since, and 
it was nothing to him to hear it. He was glad that the growing 
darkness prevented his face from being seen. “ I am of the family 
too,” said Clive, “ and Barnes Newcome and I had the same grand- 
father.” 

“Oh yes, old boy — old banker, the weaver, what was he? I 
forgot,” says poor Jack, kicking on Clive’s bed, “ in that family the 
Newcomes don’t count. I beg your pardon,” groans poor Jack. 

They lapse into silence, during which Jack’s cigar glimmers 
from the twilight corner where Clive’s bed is ; while Clive wafts 
his fragrance out of the window where he sits, and whence he has 
a view of Lady Ann Newcome’s windows to the right, over the 
bridge across the little rushing river, at the “ Hotel de Hollande ” 
hard by. The lights twinkle in the booths under the pretty lime 
avenues. The hum of distant voices is heard ; the gambling palace 


302 


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is all in a blaze ; it is an assembly night, and from the doors of the 
/i Conversation Rooms, as they open and close, escape gusts of 
harmony. Behind on the little hill the darkling woods lie calm, 

• the edges of the fir trees cut sharp against the sky, which is clear 
with a crescent moon and the lambent lights of the starry hosts of 
heaven. Clive does not see pine-robed hills and shining stars, nor 
think of pleasure in its palace yonder, nor of pain writhing on his 
own bed within a few feet of him, where poor Belsize was groaning. 
His eyes are fixed upon a window whence comes the red light of a 
lamp, across which shadows float now and again. So every light 
in every booth yonder has a sheen of its own ; every star above 
shines by itself ; and each individual heart of ours goes on bright- 
ening with its own hopes, burning with its own desires, and quiver- 
ing with its own pain. 

The reverie is interrupted by the waiter, who announces M. le 
Vicomte de Florae, and a third cigar is added to the other two 
smoky lights. Belsize is glad to see Florae, whom he has known 
in a thousand haunts. He will do my business for me. He has 
been out half-a-dozen times, thinks Jack. It would relieve the 
poor fellow’s boiling blood that some one would let a little out. 
He lays his affair before Florae, he expects a message from Lord 
Dorking. 

“Comment done 1 ?” cried Florae; “il y avait done quelque 
chose ! Cette pauvre petite miss ! Vous voulez tuer le pkre, aprks 
avoir ddlaissd la fille? Cherchez d’autres t&noins, monsieur. Le 
Vicomte de Florae ne se fait pas complice de telles lachetds.” 

“ By Heaven ! ” says Jack, sitting up on the bed, with his eyes 
glaring. “ I have a great mind, Florae, to wring your infernal little 
neck, and to fling you out of the window. Is all the world going to 
turn against me? I am half mad as it is. If any man dares to 
think anything wrong regarding that little angel, or to fancy that 
she is not as pure, and as good, and as gentle, and as innocent, by 
Heaven, as any angel there, — if any man thinks I’d be the villain 
to hurt her, I should just like to see him,” says Jack. “ By the 
Lord, sir, just bring him to me. Just tell the waiter to send him 
upstairs. Hurt her ! I hurt her ! Oh, I’m a fool ! a fool ! a 
d— d fool! Who’s that?” 

“ It’s Kew,” says a voice out of the darkness from behind cigar 
No. 4, and Clive now, having a party assembled, scrapes a match 
and lights his candles. 

“I heard your last words, Jack,” Lord Kew says bluntly, “and 
you never spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here ? 
What right had you to stab that poor little heart over again, and 
frighten Lady Clara with your confounded hairy face ? You promised 


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303 


me you would never see her. You gave your word of honour you 
wouldn’t, when I gave you the money to go abroad. Hang the 
money, I don’t mind that ; it was on your promise that you would 
prowl about her no more. The Dorkings left London before you 
came there ; they gave you your innings. They have behaved 
kindly and fairly enough to that poor girl. How was she to marry 
such a bankrupt beggar as you are? What you have done is a 
shame, Charley Belsize. I tell you it is unmanly, and cowardly.” 

“ Pst,” says Florae, “ num^ro deux, voilk le mot lache.” 

“ Don’t bite your thumb at me,” Kew went on. “ I know you 
could thrash me, if that’s what you mean by shaking your fists ; so 
could most men. I tell you again — you have done a bad deed ; you 
have broken your word of honour, and you knocked down Clara 
Pulley n to-day as cruelly as if you had done it with your hand.” 

With this rush upon him, and fiery assault of Kew, Belsize was 
quite bewildered. The huge man flung up his great arms, and let 
them drop at his side as a gladiator that surrenders, and asks for 
pity. He sank down once more on the iron bed. 

“I don’t know,” says he, rolling and rolling round, in one of 
his great hands, one of the brass knobs of the bed by which he was 
seated. “I don’t know, Frank,” says he, “what the world is 
coming to, or me either; here is twice in one night I have been 
called a coward — by you, and by that little What-d’you-call-’em. 
I beg your pardon, Florae. I don’t know whether it is very brave 
in you to hit a chap when he is down ; hit again, I have no friends. 
I have acted like a blackguard, I own that; I did break my 
promise ; you had that safe enough, Frank, my boy ; but I did not 
think it would hurt her to see me,” says he, with a dreadful sob in 

his voice. “ By I would have given ten years of my life to 

look at her. I was going mad without her. I tried every place, 
everything ; went to Ems, to Wiesbaden, to Hombourg, and played 
like hell. It used to excite me once, and now I don’t care for it. 
I won no end of money, — no end for a poor beggar like me, that is ; 
but I couldn’t keep away. I couldn’t, and if she had been at the 
North Pole, by heavens, I would have followed her.” 

“And so just to look at her, just to give your confounded 
stupid eyes two minutes’ pleasure, you must bring about all this 
pain, you great baby,” cries Kew, who was very soft-hearted, and 
in truth quite torn himself by the sight of poor Jack’s agony. 

“Get me to see her for five minutes, Kew,” cries the other, 
griping his comrade’s hand in his : “but for five minutes.” 

“ For shame,” cries Lord Kew, shaking away his hand ; “ be a 
man, Jack, and have no more of this puling. It’s not a baby, that 
must have its toy, and cries because it can’t get it. Spare the poor 


304 


THE NEWCOMES 


girl this pain, for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure 
of bullying and making her unhappy.” 

Belsize started up with looks that were by no means pleasant. 
“ There’s enough of this chaff. I have been called names and 
blackguarded quite sufficiently for one sitting. I shall act as I 
please. I choose to take my own way, and if any gentleman stops 
me he has full warning.” And he fell to tugging his mustachios, 
which were of a dark tawny hue, and looked as warlike as he had 
ever done on any field-day. 

“ I take the warning ! ” said Lord Kew. “ And if I know the 
way you are going, as I think I do, I will do my best to stop you, 
madman as you are ! You can hardly propose to follow her to her 
own doorway, and pose yourself before your mistress as the murderer 
of her father, like Rodrigue in the French play. If Rooster were 
here it would be his business to defend his sister ; in his absence I 
will take the duty on myself, and I say to you, Charles Belsize, in 
the presence of these gentlemen, that any man who insults this 
young lady, who persecutes her with his presence, knowing it can 
but pain her, who persists in following her when he has given his 
word of honour to avoid her, that such a man is -” 

“ What, my Lord Kew ? ” cries Belsize, whose chest began to 
heave. 

“You know what,” answers the other. “You know what a 
man is who insults a poor woman, and breaks his word of honour. 
Consider the word said, and act upon it as you think fit.” 

“I owe you four thousand pounds, Kew,” says Belsize, “and I 
have got four thousand on the bills, besides four hundred when I 
came out of that place.” 

“You insult me the more,” cries Kew, flashing out, “ by 
alluding to the money. If you will leave this place to-morrow, well 
and good ; if not, you will please to give me a meeting. Mr. Newcome, 
will you be so kind as to act as my friend'? We are connections, 
you know, and this gentleman chooses to insult a lady who is about 
to become one of our family.” 

“ C’est bien, milord. Ma foi ! c’est d’agir en vrai gentil- 
homme,” says Florae, delighted. “ Touchez-la, mon petit Kiou. 
Tu as du coeur. Godam ! you are a brave ! A brave fellow ! ” and 
the Viscount reached out his hand cordially to Lord Kew. 

His purpose was evidently pacific. From Kew he turned to 
the great guardsman, and taking him by the coat began to apostro- 
phise him. “ And you, mon gros,” says he, “ is there no way of 
calming this hot blood without a saignde 1 Have you a penny to 
the world ? Can you hope to carry off your Chimkne, 0 Rodrigue, 
and live by robbing afterwards on the great way? Suppose you 


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305 


kill ze Fazdr, you kill Kiou, you kill Roostere, your Chimkne will 
have a pretty moon of honey.” 

“ What the devil do you mean about your Chimkne and your 
Rodrigue'? What do you mean, Viscount?” says Belsize, Jack 
Belsize once more, and he dashed his hand across his eyes, “ Kew 
has riled me and he drove me half wild. I ain’t much of a French- 
man, but I know enough of what you said to say it’s true, by Jove, 
and that Frank Kew’s a trump. That’s what you mean. Give us 
your hand, Frank. God bless you, old boy ; don’t be too hard 
upon me, you know I’m d — d miserable, that I am. Hullo ! 
What’s this ? ” Jack’s pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, 
for the Vicomte de Florae in his enthusiasm rushed into his arms, 
and jumped up towards his face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A 
roar of immense laughter, as he shook the little Viscount off, cleared 
the air and ended this quarrel. 

Everybody joined in this chorus, the Frenchman with the rest, 
who said, “ he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why.” 
And now came the moment of the evening, when Clive, according 
to Lord Kew’s saying, behaved so well and prevented Barnes from 
incurring a great danger. In truth, what Mr. Clive did or said 
amounted exactly to nothing. What moments can we not all 
remember in our lives when it would have been so much wittier 
and wiser to say and do nothing? 

Florae, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed 
with a very fine appetite, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a 
day at least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for 
supper too, and especially more drink, champagne and seltzer-water ; 
“ bring champagne and seltzer- water, there is nothing like it.” Clive 
could not object to this entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, 
and the four young men sat down to share it. 

Whilst Florae was partaking of his favourite ecrevisses, giving 
not only his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios and 
cheeks a full enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he 
chose to revert now and again to the occurrences which had just 
passed, and which had better perhaps have been forgotten, and gaily 
rallied Belsize upon his warlike humour. “If ze petit prdtendu 
was here, what would you have done wiz him, Jac ? You would 
croquer ’im, like zis ^crevisse, hein ? You would mache his bones, 
hein ? ” 

Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer- water into his 
champagne, writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcome before 
him, and swore, could he but see Barnes, he would take the little 
villain’s life. 

And but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. 

8 V 


306 


THE NEWCOMES 


Young Clive after the meal went to the window with his eternal 
cigar, and of course began to look at That Other window. Here, 
as he looked, a carriage had at the moment driven up. He saw 
two servants descend, then two gentlemen, and then he heard a 
well-known voice swearing at the couriers. To his credit be it said 
he checked the exclamation which was on his lips, and when he 
came back to the table did not announce to Kew or his right-hand 
neighbour Belsize that his uncle and Barnes had arrived. Belsize, 
by this time, had had quite too much wine : when the Viscount 
went away, poor J ack’s head was nodding ; he had been awake all 
the night before ; sleepless for how many nights previous. He 
scarce took any notice of the Frenchman’s departure. 

Lord Kew remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for 
reasoning with him further, and for entering more at large than 
perhaps he chose to do before the two others upon this family 
dispute. Clive took a moment to whisper to Lord Kew, “ My 
uncle and Barnes are arrived, don’t let Belsize go out ; for goodness’ 
sake let us get him to bed.” 

And, lest the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress 
by moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned 
the key in Mr. Jack’s door. 


CHAPTER XXX 


A RETREAT 

AS Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, 
AA and speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been 
* suddenly called to take a certain part, a sure presentiment 
told him that his own happy holiday was come to an end, and that 
the clouds and storm which he had always somehow foreboded, were 
about to break and obscure this brief pleasant period of sunshine. 
He rose at a very early hour, flung his windows open, looked out 
no doubt towards those other windows in the neighbouring hotel, 
where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring, drawn by a 
hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned 
back into his chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some of 
the relics of the last night’s little feast, which still remained on 

the table. There were the champagne flasks which poor Jack 

Belsize had emptied ; the tall seltzer- water bottle, from which the 
gases had issued and mingled with the hot air of the previous 
night’s talk ; glasses with dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their 
black stumps, strewing the cloth ; the dead men, the burst guns 
of yesterday’s battle. Early as it was, his neighbour J. J. had 

been up before him. Clive could hear him singing as was his 

wont when the pencil went well, and the colours arranged them- 
selves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy work. 

He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his 
board and colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water 
bottle, drank some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in 
the rest, with which he began to paint. The work all went wrong. 
There was no song for him over his labour ; he dashed brush and 
board aside after a while, opened his drawers, pulled out his 
portmanteaus from under the bed, and fell to packing mechanically. 
J. J. heard the noise from the next room, and came in smiling, with 
a great painting-brush in his mouth. 

“Have the bills in,” says Clive. “Leave your cards on your 
friends, old boy ; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry girl 
whose picture you have been doing ; polish it off to-day, and dry 
the little thing’s tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and 


308 THE NEWCOMES 

0 

my familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, * Clive, son of 
Thomas, put thy travelling boots on.’ ” 

Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fie against 
the good, pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his straw- 
berry girl was a little village maiden of seven years old, whose 
sweet little picture a bishop purchased at the next year’s Exhibition. 

“ Are you going already ? ” cries J. J., removing the brush 
out of his mouth. “ I thought you had arranged parties for a 
week to come, and that the princesses and the duchesses had 
positively forbidden the departure of your lordship ! ” 

“ We have dallied at Capua long enough,” says Clive ; “ and 
the legions have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son 
of Hasdrubal.” 

“ The son of Hasdrubal is quite right,” his companion answered; 
“ the sooner we march the better. I have always said it ; I will get 
all the accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous 
Carthaginian prince. One, two, three champagne bottles ! There 
will be a deuce of a bill to pay.” 

“Ah ! there will be a deuce of a bill to pay,” says Clive, with 
a groan whereof J. J. knew the portent ; for the young men had 
the confidence of youth one in another. Clive was accustomed 
to pour out his full heart to any crony who was near him ; and 
indeed had he spoken never a word, his growing attachment to 
his cousin was not hard to see. A hundred times, and with the 
glowing language and feelings of youth, with the fire of his twenty 
years, with the ardour of a painter, he had spoken of her and 
described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her courage and 
lofty scorn, her kindness towards her little family, her form, her 
glorious colour of rich carnation and dazzling white, her queenly 
grace when quiescent and in motion, had constantly formed the sub- 
jects of this young gentleman’s ardent eulogies. As he looked at 
a great picture or statue, as the “ Venus ” of Milo, calm and deep, 
unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she sprung ; as he 
looked at the rushing “ Aurora ” of the Rospigliosi, or the “ As- 
sumption ” of Titian, more bright and glorious than sunshine, or 
that divine “ Madonna and divine Infant” of Dresden, whose sweet 
faces must have shone upon Raphael out of heaven ; Clive’s heart 
sang hymns, as it were, before these gracious altars; and, some- 
what as he worshipped these masterpieces of his art, he admired 
the beauty of Ethel. 

J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and en- 
joyed honest Clive’s mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture 
of song ; but Ridley’s natural note was much gentler, and he sang 
his hymns in plaintive minors. Ethel was all that was bright and 


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309 


beautiful, but — but she was engaged to Lord Kew. The shrewd 
kind confidant used gently to hint the sad fact to the impetuous 
hero of this piece. The impetuous hero knew this quite well. As 
he was sitting over his painting-board he would break forth fre- 
quently, after his manner, in which laughter and sentiment were 
mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy young 
lungs — 

“ But her heart is another’s, she never — can — be — mine ; ” 

and then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing-table. 
Miss Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice 
Grey. 

Very likely Night, tjie Grey Mentor, had given Clive Newcome 
the benefit of his sad counsel. Poor Belsize’s agony, and the 
wretchedness of the young lady who shared in the desperate passion, 
may have set our young man a thinking ; and Lord Kew’s frankness 
and courage and honour, whereof Clive had been a witness during 
the night, touched his heart with a generous admiration, and manned 
him for a trial which he felt was indeed severe. He thought of 
the dear old father ploughing the seas on the way to his duty, and 
was determined, by Heaven’s help, to do his own. Only three weeks 
since, when strolling careless about Bonn, he had lighted upon Ethel 
and the laughing group of little cousins, he was a boy as they were, 
thinking but of the enjoyment of the day and the sunshine, as 
careless as those children. And now the thoughts and passions 
which had sprung up in a week or two, had given him an ex- 
perience such as years do not always furnish ; and our friend was 
to show, not only that he could feel love in his heart, but that 
he could give proof of courage, and self-denial, and honour. 

“Do you remember, J. J.,” says he, as boots and breeches 
went plunging into the portmanteau, and with immense energy he 
pummels down one upon the other, “ do you remember ” (a dig 
into the snowy bosom of a dress cambric shirt) “ my dear old father’s 
only campaign story of his running away” (a frightful blow into 
the ribs of a waistcoat), “ running away at Asseer-Ghur 1 ” 

“ Asseer-What 1 ” says J. J., wondering. 

“ The siege of Asseer-Ghur ! ” says Clive, “fought in the event- 
ful year 1803 : Lieutenant Newcome, who has very neat legs, let 
me tell you, which also he has imparted to his descendants, had put 
on a new pair of leather breeches, for he likes to go handsomely dressed 
into action. His horse was shot, the enemy were upon him, and the 
governor had to choose between death and retreat. I have heard 
his brother officers say that my dear old father was the bravest 
man they ever knew, the coolest hand, sir. What do you think 


310 


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it was Lieutenant Newcome’s duty to do under these circumstances'? 
To remain alone as he was, his troop having turned about, and to 
be cut down by the Mahratta horsemen — to perish or to run, sir 1 ” 

“ I know which I should have done,” says Ridley. 

“Exactly. Lieutenant Newcome adopted that course. His 
bran-new leather breeches were exceedingly tight, and greatly in- 
commoded the rapidity of his retreating movement, but he ran 
away, sir, and afterwards begot your obedient servant. That is 
the history of the battle of Asseer-Ghur.” 

“And now for the moral,” says J. J., not a little amused. 

“ J. J., old boy, this is my battle of Asseer-Ghur. I am off. 
Dip into the money-bag ; pay the people ; be generous, J. J., but 
not too prodigal. The chambermaid is ugly, yet let her not want 
for a crown to console her at our departure. The waiters have 
been brisk and servile, reward the slaves for their labours. Forget 
not the humble boots, so shall he bless us when we depart. For 
artists are gentlemen, though Ethel does not think so. De — No — 
God bless her, God bless her ! ” groans out Clive, cramming his 
two fists into his eyes. If Ridley admired him before, he thought 
none the worse of him now. And if any generous young fellow in 
life reads the Fable, which may possibly concern him, let him take 
a senior’s counsel, and remember that there are perils in our battle, 
God help us, from which the bravest had best run away. 

Early as the morning yet was, Clive had a visitor, and the door 
opened to let in Lord Kew’s honest face. Ridley retreated before 
it into his own den ; the appearance of earls scared the modest 
painter, though he was proud and pleased that his Clive should 
have their company. Lord Kew, indeed, lived in more splendid 
apartments on the first floor of the hotel, Clive and his friend 
occupying a couple of spacious chambers on the second storey. 
“ You are an early bird,” says Kew. “ I got up myself in a panic 
before daylight almost ; Jack was making a deuce of a row in his 
room, and fit to blow the door out. I have been coaxing him for 
this hour ; I wish we had thought of giving him a dose of laudanum 
last night; if it finished him, poor old boy, it would do him no 
harm.” And then, laughing, he gave Clive an account of his 
interview with Barnes on the previous night. “You seem to be 
packing up to go too,” says Lord Kew, with a momentary glance 
of humour darting from his keen eyes. “ The weather is breaking 
up here, and if you are going to cross the St. Gothard, as the 
Newcomes told me, the sooner the better. It’s bitter cold over 
the mountains in October.” 

“Very cold,” says Clive, biting his nails. 

“ Post or Yett. 1 ” asks my Lord. 


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311 


“ I bought a carriage at Frankfort,” says Clive, in an off-hand 
manner. 

“ Hullo ! ” cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely 
frank and pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation 
with men of any degree, except, perhaps, that to his inferiors in 
station he was a little more polite than to his equals ; but who 
would as soon have thought of a young artist leaving Baden in a 
carriage of his own as of his riding away on a dragon. 

“ I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage, it’s a little light 
thing, we are two, a couple of horses carry us and our traps, you 
know, and we can stop where we like. I don’t depend upon my 
profession,” Clive added, with a blush. “I made thirty shillings 
once, and that is the only money I ever gained in my life.” 

“ Of course, my dear fellow, have not I been to your father’s 
house 1 At that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there 1 
We are young swells. I know that very well. We only paint for 
pleasure.’ 

“We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my Lord,” 
says Clive. “ Will your Lordship give me an order ? ” 

“My lordship serves me right,” the other said. “I think, 
Newcome, as you are going, I think you might do some folks here 
a good turn, though the service is rather a disagreeable one. Jack 
Belsize is not fit to be left alone. I can’t go away from here just 
now for reasons of state. Do be a good fellow and take him with 
you. Put the Alps between him and this confounded business, and 
if I can serve you in any way I shall be delighted, if you will furnish 
me with the occasion. Jack does not know yet that our amiable 
Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I have heard 
the story — glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How that 
poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are 
fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” Clive broke out, “ can it be possible that a 
young creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent 
coxcomb as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome 1 You know 
very well, Lord Kew, what his life is. There was a poor girl whom 
he brought out of a Newcome factory when he was a boy himself, 
and might have had a heart one would have thought, whom he ill 
treated, whom he deserted, and flung out of doors without a penny, 
upon some pretence of her infidelity towards him ; who came and 
actually sat down on the steps of Park Lane with a child on each 
side of her, and not their cries and their hunger, but the fear of his 
own shame and a dread of a police-court, forced him to give her 
a maintenance. I never see the fellow but I loathe him, and long 
to kick him out of window : and this man is to marry a noble young 


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lady because, forsooth, he is a partner in a bank, and heir to seven 
or eight thousand a year. Oh, it is a shame^ it is a shame ! It 
makes me sick when I think of the lot which the poor thing is to 
endure.” 

“It is not a nice story,” said Lord Kew, rolling a cigarette ; 
“Barnes is not a nice man. I give you that in. You have not 
heard it talked about in the family, have you ? ” 

“ Good heavens ! you don’t suppose that I would speak to 
Ethel, to Miss Newcome, about such a fold subject as that ?” cries 
Clive. “ I never mentioned it to my own father. He would have 
turned Barnes out of his doors if he had known it.” 

“It was the talk about town, I know,” Kew said dryly. 
“ Everything is told in those confounded clubs. I told you I give 
up Barnes. I like him no more than you do. He may have treated 
the woman ill, I suspect he has not an angelical temper ; but in 
this matter he has not been so bad, so very bad as it would seem. 
The first step is wrong of course — those factory towns — that sort of 
thing, you know — well, well, the commencement of the business is 
a bad one. But he is not the only sinner in London. He has 
declared on his honour to me when the matter was talked about, 
and he was coming on for election at Bays’s, and was as nearly pilled 
as any man I ever knew in my life, — he declared on his word that 
he only parted from Mrs. Delacy (Mrs. Delacy the poor devil used 
to call herself) because he found that she had served him — as such 
women will serve men. He offered to send his children to school in 
Yorkshire — rather a cheap school — but she would not part with 
them. She made a scandal in order to get good terms, and she 
succeeded. He was anxious to break the connection ; he owned it 
had hung like a millstone round his neck, and caused him a great 
deal of remorse — annoyance you may call it. He was immensely 
cut up about it. I remember, when that fellow was hanged for 
murdering a woman, Barnes said he did not wonder at his having 
done it. Young men make those connections in their early lives, 
and rue them all their days after. He was heartily sorry, that we 
may take for granted. He wished to lead a proper life. My grand- 
mother managed this business with the Dorkings. Lady Kew still 
pulls stroke-oar in our boat, you know, and the old woman will not 
give up her place. They know everything, the elders do. Barnes 
is a clever fellow. He is witty in his way. When he likes he can 
make himself quite agreeable to some people. There has been no 
sort of force. You don’t suppose young ladies are confined in 
dungeons and subject to tortures, do you 1 But there is a brood of 
Pulleyns at Chanticlere, and old Dorking has nothing to give them. 
His daughter accepted Barnes of her own free-will, he knowing 


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313 


perfectly well of that previous affair with Jack. The poor devil 
bursts into the place yesterday, and the girl drops down in a faint. 
She will see Belsize this very day if he likes. I took a note from 
Lady Dorking to him at five o’clock this morning.' If he fancies 
that there is any constraint put upon Lady Clara’s actions, she will 
tell him with her own lips that she has acted of her own free-will. 
She will marry the husband she has chosen, and do her duty by 
him. You are quite a young un who boil and froth up with 
indignation at the idea that a girl hardly off with an old love should 
take on with a new ” 

“ I am not indignant with her,” says Clive, “ for breaking with 
Belsize, but for marrying Barnes.” 

“You hate him, and you know he is your enemy ; and, indeed, 
young fellow, he does not compliment you in talking about you. 
A pretty young scapegrace he has made you out to be, and very 
likely thinks you to be. It depends on the colours in which a 
fellow is painted. Our friends and our enemies draw us, — and I 
often think both pictures are like,” continued the easy world-philo- 
sopher. “You hate Barnes, and cannot see any good in him. He 
sees none in you. There have been tremendous shindies in Park 
Lane a propos of your worship, and of a subject which I don’t care 
to mention,” said Lord Kew, with some dignity ; “ and what is the 
upshot of all this malevolence ? I like you ; I like your father, I 
think he is a noble old boy ; there are those who represented him 
as a sordid schemer. Give Mr. Barnes the benefit of common 
charity at any rate ; and let others like him, if you do not. 

“And as for this romance of love,” the young nobleman went 
on, kindling as he spoke, and forgetting the slang and colloquialisms 
with which we garnish all our conversation — “ this fine picture of 
Jenny and Jessamy falling in love at first sight, billing and cooing 
in an arbour, and retiring to a cottage afterwards to go on cooing 
and billing — Pshaw ! what folly is this ! It is good for romances, 
and for misses to sigh about ; but any man who walks through the 
world with his eyes open, knows how senseless is all this rubbish. 
I don’t say that a young man and woman are not to meet, and to 
fall in love that instant, and to marry that day year, and love each 
other till they are a hundred ; that is the supreme lot — but that is 
the lot which the gods only grant to Baucis and Philemon, and a 
very very few besides. As for the rest, they must compromise; 
make themselves as comfortable as they can, and take the good and 
the bad together. And as for Jenny and Jessamy, by Jove ! look 
round among your friends, count up the love matches, and see what 
has been the end of most of them ! Love in a cottage ! Who is to 
pay the landlord for the cottage ? Who is to pay for Jenny’s tea 


314 


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and cream, and Jessamy’s mutton-chops? If he has cold mutton, 
he will quarrel with her. If there is nothing in the cupboard, a 
pretty meal they make. No, you cry out against people in our 
world making money marriages. Why, kings and queens marry on 
the same understanding. My butcher has saved a stocking full of 
money, and marries his daughter to a young salesman ; Mr. and 
Mrs. Salesman prosper in life, and get an alderman’s daughter for 
their son. My attorney looks out amongst his clients for an eligible 
husband for Miss Deeds ; sends his son to the bar, into Parliament, 
where he cuts a figure and becomes attorney-general, makes a fortune, 
has a house in Belgrave Square, and marries Miss Deeds of the 
second generation to a peer. Do not accuse us of being more sordid 
than our neighbours. We do but as the world does; and a girl in 
our society accepts the best parti which offers itself, just as Miss 
Chummey, when entreated by two young gentlemen of the order 
of costermongers, inclines to the one who rides from market on a 
moke, rather than to the gentleman who sells his greens from a 
handbasket.” 

This tirade, which his Lordship delivered with considerable 
spirit, was intended no doubt to carry a moral for Clive’s private 
hearing ; and which, to do him justice, the youth was not slow to 
comprehend. The point was, “ Young man, if certain persons of 
rank choose to receive you very kindly, who have but a comely face, 
good manners, and three or four hundred pounds a year, do not 
presume upon their good-nature, or indulge in certain ambitious 
hopes which your vanity may induce you to form. Sail down the 
stream with the brass pots, Master Earthen-pot, but beware of 
coming too near ! You are a nice young man, but there are some 
prizes which are too good for you, and are meant for your betters. 
And you might as well ask the prime minister for the next vacant 
Garter as expect to wear on your breast such a star as Ethel 
Newcome.” 

Before Clive made his accustomed visit to his friends at the 
hotel opposite, the last great potentiary had arrived who was to 
take part in the family congress of Baden. In place of Ethel’s 
flushing cheeks and bright eyes, Clive found, on entering Lady 
Ann Newcome’s sitting-room, the parchment-covered features and 
the well-known hooked beak of the old Countess of Kew. To 
support the glances from beneath the bushy black eyebrows on each 
side of that promontory was no pleasant matter. The whole family 
cowered under Lady Kew’s eyes and nose, and she ruled by force of 
them. It was only Ethel whom these awful features did not utterly 
subdue and dismay. 

Besides Lady Kew, Clive had the pleasure or finding his Lord- 


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315 


ship her grandson, Lady Ann, and children of various sizes, and 
Mr. Barnes ; not one of whom was the person whom Clive desired 
to behold. 

The queer glance in Kew’s eye directed towards Clive, who was 
himself not by any means deficient in perception, informed him that 
there had just been a conversation in which his own name had 
figured. Having been abusing Clive extravagantly, as he did 
whenever he mentioned his cousin’s name, Barnes must needs hang 
his head when the young fellow came in. His hand was yet on 
the chamber door, and Barnes was calling him miscreant and 
scoundrel within ; so no wonder Barnes had a hangdog look. But 
as for Lady Kew, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of 
discomfiture, or any other emotion, to display themselves on her 
ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery, 
her unfathomable eyes were wells of gloom. 

She gratified Clive by a momentary loan of two knuckly old 
fingers, w T hich he was at liberty to hold or to drop ; and then he 
went on to enjoy the felicity of shaking hands with Mr. Barnes, 
who, observing and enjoying his confusion over Lady Kew’s recep- 
tion, determined to try Clive in the same way, and he gave Clive at 
the same time a supercilious “ How de dah,” which the other would 
have liked to drive down his throat. A constant desire to throttle 
Mr. Barnes — to beat him on the nose — to send him flying out of 
window, was a sentiment with which this singular young man 
inspired many persons whom he accosted. A biographer ought to 
be impartial, yet I own, in a modified degree, to have partaken of 
this sentiment. He looked very much younger than his actual time 
of life, and was not of commanding stature; but patronised his equals, 
nay, let us say his betters, so insufferably, that a common wish for 
his suppression existed amongst many persons in society. 

Clive told me of this little circumstance, and I am sorry to say 
of his own subsequent ill behaviour. “We were standing apart 
from the ladies,” so Clive narrated, “when Barnes and I had our 
little passage of arms. He had tried the finger business upon me 
before, and I had before told him, either to shake hands or to leave 
it alone. You know the way in which the impudent little beggar 
stands astride, and sticks his little feet out. I brought my heel 
well down on his confounded little varnished toe, and gave it a 
scrunch which made Mr. Barnes shriek out one of his loudest oaths.” 

“ D clumsy ! ” screamed out Barnes. 

Clive said, in a low voice, “ I thought you only swore at women, 
Barnes.” 

“It is you that say things before women, Clive,” cries his 
cousin, looking very furious. 


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THE NEW COMES 


Mr. Clive lost all patience. “ In what company, Barnes, would 
you like me to say, that I think you are a snob ? Will you have it 
on the Parade? Come out and I will speak to you.” 

“ Barnes can’t go out on the Parade,” cries Lord Kew, bursting 
out laughing, “ there’s another gentleman there wanting him.” And 
two of the three young men enjoyed this joke exceedingly. I doubt 
whether Barnes Newcome Newcome, Esq., of Newcome, was one of 
the persons amused. 

“ What wickedness are you three boys laughing at ? ” cries Lady 
Ann, perfectly innocent and good-natured ; “no good, I will be 
bound. Come here, Clive.” Our young friend, it must be pre- 
mised, had no sooner received the thrust of Lady Kew’s two fingers 
on entering, than it had been intimated to him that his interview 
with that gracious lady was at an end. For she had instantly 
called her daughter to her, with whom her Ladyship fell a-whisper- 
ing ; and then it was that Clive retreated from Lady Kew’s hand, 
to fall into Barnes’s. 

“ Clive trod on Barnes’s toe,” cries out cheery Lord Kew, “ and 
has hurt Barnes’s favourite corn so that he cannot go out, and 
is actually obliged to keep the room. That’s what we were 
laughing at.” 

“ Hem ! ” growled Lady Kew. She knew to what her grandson 
alluded. Lord Kew had represented Jack Belsize, and his thunder- 
ing big stick, in the most terrific colours to the family council. The 
joke was too good a one not to serve twice. 

Lady Ann, in her whispered conversation with the old Countess, 
had possibly deprecated her mother’s anger towards poor Clive, for 
when he came up to the two ladies, the younger took his hand with 
great kindness, and said, “ My dear Clive, we are very sorry you 
are going. You were of the greatest use to us on the journey. I 
am sure you have been uncommonly good-natured and obliging, and 
we shall all miss you very much.” Her gentleness smote the 
generous young fellow, and an emotion of gratitude towards her for 
being so compassionate to him in his misery caused his cheeks to 
blush and his eyes perhaps to moisten. “ Thank you, dear aunt,” 
says he, “ you have been very good and kind to me. It is I that 
shall feel lonely ; but — but it is quite time that I should go to my 
work.” 

“ Quite time ! ” said the severe possessor of the eagle beak. 
“ Baden is a bad place for young men. They make acquaintances 
here of which very little good can come. They frequent the 
gambling tables, and live with the most disreputable French Vis- 
counts. We have heard of your goings on, sir. It is a great pity 
that Colonel Newcome did not take you with him to India,” 


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317 


u My dear mamma,” cries Lady Ann, “ I am sure Clive has 
been a very good boy indeed.” The old lady’s morality put a stop 
to Clive’s pathetic mood, and he replied with a great deal of spirit, 
“ Dear Lady Ann, you have been always very good, and kindness is 
nothing surprising from you ; but Lady Kew’s advice, which I 
should not have ventured to ask, is an unexpected favour; my 
father knows the extent of the gambling transactions to which your 
Ladyship was pleased to allude, and introduced me to the gentleman 
whose acquaintance you don’t seem to think eligible.” 

“My good young man, I think it is time you were off,” Lady 
Kew said, this time with great good-humour : she liked Clive’s 
spirit, and as long as he interfered with none of her plans, was 
quite disposed to be friendly with him. “Go to Rome, go to 
Florence, go wherever you like, and study very hard, and make 
very good pictures, and come back again, and we shall all be very 
glad to see you. You have very great talents — these sketches are 
really capital.” 

“Is not he very clever, mamma?” said kind Lady Ann 
eagerly. Clive felt the pathetic mood coming on again, and an 
immense desire to hug Lady Ann in his arms, and to kiss her. 
How grateful are we — how touched a frank and generous heart is 
for a kind word extended to us in our pain ! The pressure of a 
tender hand nerves a man for an operation, and cheers him for the 
dreadful interview with the surgeon. 

That cool old operator who had taken Mr. Clive’s case in hand 
now produced her shining knife, and executed the first cut with 
perfect neatness and precision. “We are come here, as I suppose 
you know, Mr. Newcome, upon family matters, and I frankly tell 
you that I think, for your own sake, you would be much better 
away. I wrote my daughter a great scolding when I heard that 
you were in this place.” 

“But it was by the merest chance, mamma, indeed it was,” 
cries Lady Ann. 

“Of course, by the merest chance, and by the merest chance I 
heard of it too. A little bird came and told me at Kissingen. You 
have no more sense, Ann, than a goose. I have told you so a 
hundred times. Lady Ann requested you to stay, and I, my good 
young friend, request you to go away.” 

“I needed no request,” said Clive. “My going, Lady Kew, is 
my own act. I was going without requiring any guide to show me 
to the door.” 

“No doubt you were, and my arrival is the signal for Mr. 
Newcome’s bon jour. I am Bogey, and I frighten everybody away. 
By the scene which you witnessed yesterday, my good young friend, 


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and all that painful esclandre on the promenade, you must see how 
absurd, and dangerous, and wicked — yes, wicked it is for parents to 
allow intimacies to spring up between young people which can only 
lead to disgrace and unhappiness. Lady Dorking was another good- 
natured goose. I had not arrived yesterday ten minutes, when 
my maid came running in to tell me of what had occurred on 
the promenade ; and, tired as I was, I went that instant to Jane 
Dorking and passed the evening with her, and that poor little 
creature to whom Captain Belsize behaved so cruelly. She does 
not care a fig for him — not one fig. Her childish inclination is 
passed away these two years, whilst Mr. Jack was performing his 
feats in prison ; and if the wretch flatters himself that it was on 
his account she was agitated yesterday, he is perfectly mistaken, 
and you may tell him Lady Kew said so. She is subject to fainting- 
fits. Dr. Finck has been attending her ever since she has been 
here. She fainted only last Tuesday at the sight of a rat walking 
about their lodgings (they have dreadful lodgings, the Dorkings), 
and no wonder she was frightened at the sight of that great coarse 
tipsy wretch ! She is engaged, as you know, to your connection, 
my grandson, Barnes — in all respects a most eligible union. The 
rank of life of the parties suits them to one another. She is a good 
young woman, and Barnes has experienced from persons of another 
sort such horrors, that he will know the blessing of domestic virtue. 
It was high time he should. I say all this in perfect frankness 
to you. 

“ Go back again and play in the garden, little brats ” (this to 
the innocents who came frisking in from the lawn in front of the 
windows). “You have been ? And Barnes sent you in here h Go 
up to Miss Quigley. No, stop. Go and tell Ethel to come down; 
bring her down with you. Do you understand ? ” 

The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister; and 
Lady Kew blandly says, “ Ethel’s engagement to my grandson, Lord 
Kew, has long been settled in our family, though these things are 
best not talked about until they are quite determined, you know, 
my dear Mr. Newcome. When we saw you and your father in 
London, we heard that you too — that you too were engaged to a 
young lady in your own rank of life, a Miss — what was her name 1 
— Miss MacPherson, Miss Mackenzie. Your aunt, Mrs. Hobson 
Newcome, who, I must say, is a most blundering silly person, had 
set about this story. It appears there is no truth in it. Do not 
look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch, 
and know numbers of things.” 

And, indeed, how Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether 
her maid corresponded with Lady Ann’s maid, what her Ladyship’s 


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319 


means of information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has 
never been able to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last 
three weeks had been made aware of that interesting circumstance, 
had announced it to Lady Kew in the course of a cross-examination, 
and there may have been a battle between the granddaughter and 
the grandmother, of which the family chronicler of the Newcomes 
has had no precise knowledge. That there were many such I know 
— skirmishes, sieges, and general engagements. When we hear the 
guns, and see the wounded, we know there has been a fight. Who 
knows had there been a battle royal, and was Miss Newcome having 
her wounds dressed upstairs ? 

“You will like to say good-bye to your cousin, I know,” Lady 
Kew continued, with imperturbable placidity. “Ethel, my dear, 
here is Mr. Clive Newcome, who has come to bid us all good-bye.” 
The little girls came trotting down at this moment, each holding 
a skirt of their elder sister. She looked rather pale, but her expres- 
sion was haughty — almost fierce. 

Clive rose up as she entered, from the sofa by the old Coun- 
tess’s side, which place she had pointed him to take during the 
amputation. He rose up and put his hair back off his face, and 
said very calmly, “Yes, I am come to say good-bye. My holidays 
are over, and Ridley and I are off for Rome ; good-bye, and God 
bless you, Ethel ! ” 

She gave him her hand, and said, “ Good-bye, Clive,” but her 
hand did not return his pressure, and dropped to her side when he 
let it go. 

Hearing the words good-bye, little Alice burst into a howl, and 
little Maude, who was an impetuous little thing, stamped her little 
red shoes, and said, “ It san’t be good-bye. Tlive san’t go.” Alice, 
roaring, clung hold of Clive’s trousers. He took them up gaily, 
each on an arm, as he had done a hundred times, and tossed the 
children on to his shoulders, where they used to like to pull his 
yellow mustachios. He kissed the little hands and faces, and a 
moment after was gone. 

“Qu’as-tu,” says M. de Florae, meeting him going over the 
bridge to his own hotel. “Qu’as-tu, mon petit Claive? Est-ce 
qu’on vient de t’arracher une dent ? ” 

“ C’est 9a,” says Clive, and walked into the “ Hotel de France.” 
“ Hullo ! J. J. ! Ridley ! ” he sang out. “ Order the trap out and 
let’s be off.” “ I thought we were not to march till to-morrow,” 
says J. J., divining perhaps that some catastrophe had occurred. 
Indeed, Mr. Clive was going a day sooner than he had intended. 
He woke at Fribourg the next morning. It was the grand old 
cathedral he looked at, not Baden of the pine-clad hills, of the 


320 


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pretty walks and the lime-tree avenues. Not Baden, the prettiest 
booth of all Vanity Fair. The crowds and the music, the gambling- 
tables and the cadaverous croupiers and chinking gold, were far out 
of sight and hearing. There was one window in the “Hotel de 
Hollande ” that lie thought of, how a fair arm used to open it in the 
early morning, how the muslin curtain in the morning air swayed 
to and fro. He would have given how much to see it once more ! 
Walking about at Fribourg in the night, away from his companions, 
he had thought of ordering horses, galloping back to Baden, and 
once again under that window, calling “ Ethel, Ethel ! ” But he 
came back to his room and the quiet J. J., and to poor Jack 
Belsize, who had had his tooth taken out too. 

We had almost forgotten Jack, who took a back seat in Clive’s 
carriage, as befits a secondary personage in this history, and Clive, 
in truth, had almost forgotten him too. But Jack having his own 
cares and business, and having rammed his own carpet bag, brought 
it down without a word, and Clive found him environed in smoke 
when he came down to take his place in the little britzska. I 
wonder whether the window at the “ Hotel de Hollande ” saw him 
go? There are some curtains behind which no historian, however 
prying, is allowed to peep. 

“ Tiens, le petit part,” says Florae of the cigar, who was always 
sauntering. “Yes, we go,” says Clive. “ There is a fourth place, 
Viscount ; will you come too ? ” 

“I would love it well,” replies Florae, “but I am here in 
faction. My cousin and Seigneur M. le Due d’lvry is coming all 
the way from Bagnhres de Bigorre. He says he counts on me : — 
affaires d’etat, mon cher, affaires d’etat.” 

“ How pleased the Duchess will be. Easy with that bag ! ” 
shouts Clive. “ How pleased the Princess will be.” In truth he 
hardly knew what he was saying. 

“ Vous croyez ; vous croyez,” says M. de Florae. “ As you have 
a fourth place I know who had best take it.” 

“ And who is that ? ” asked the young traveller. 

Lord Kew and Barnes Newcome, Esquire, came out of the 
“ Hotel de Hollande ” at this moment. Barnes slunk back, seeing 
Jack Belsize’s hairy face. Kew ran over the bridge. “ Good-bye, 
Clive. Good-bye, Jack.” “Good-bye, Kew.” It was a great 
handshaking. Away goes the postillion blowing his horn, and 
young Hannibal has left Capua behind him. 




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FAREWELL. 





























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CHAPTER XXXI 


MADAME LA DUCHESSE 

I N one of Clive Newcome’s letters from Baden, the young man 
described to me, with considerable humour and numerous illus- 
trations, as his wont was, a great lady to whom he was pre- 
sented at that watering-place by his friend Lord Kew. Lord Kew 
had travelled in the East with Monsieur le Due and Madame la 
Duchesse dTvry — the prince being an old friend of his Lordship’s 
family. He is the “ Q ” of Madame d’lvry’s book of travels, 
“Footprints of the Gazelles, by a daughter of the Crusaders,” in 
which she prays so fervently for Lord Kew’s conversion. He is 
the “ Q ” who rescued the Princess from the Arabs, and performed 
many a feat which lives in her glowing pages. He persists in 
saying that he never rescued Madame la Princesse from any Arabs 
at all, except from one beggar who was bawling out for bucksheesh, 
and whom Kew drove away with a stick. They made pilgrimages 
to all the holy places, and a piteous sight it was, said Lord Kew, 
to see the old prince in the Jerusalem processions at Easter pacing 
with bare feet and a candle. Here Lord Kew separated from the 
prince’s party. His name does not occur in the last part of the 
“ Footprints ” ; which, in truth, are filled full of strange rhapsodies, 
adventures which nobody ever saw but the princess, and mystic 
disquisitions. She hesitates at nothing, like other poets of her 
nation; not profoundly learned, she invents where she has not 
acquired; mingles together religion and the opera; and performs 
Parisian pas-de-ballet before the gates of monasteries and the cells 
of anchorites. She describes, as if she had herself witnessed the 
catastrophe, the passage of the Red Sea ; and, as if there were no 
doubt of the transaction, an unhappy love-affair between Pharaoh’s 
eldest son and Moses’s daughter. At Cairo, a propos of Joseph’s 
granaries, she enters into a furious tirade against Potiphar, whom 
she paints as an old savage, suspicious and a tyrant. They 
generally have a copy of the “ Footprints of the Gazelles ” at the 
Circulating Library at Baden, as Madame d’lvry constantly visits 
that watering-place. M. le Due was not pleased with the book, 
which was published entirely without his concurrence, and which 
8 X 


322 THE NEW COMES 

he described as one of the ten thousand follies of Madame la 
Duchesse. 

This nobleman was fiye-and-forty years older than his duchess. 
France is the country where that sweet Christian institution of 
mariages de convenance (which so many folks of the family about 
which this story treats are engaged in arranging) is most in vogue. 
There the newspapers daily announce that M. de Foy has a bureau 
de confiance , where families may arrange marriages for their sons 
and daughters in perfect comfort and security. It is but a question 
of money on one side and the other. Mademoiselle has so many 
francs of dot ; Monsieur has such and such rentes or lands in pos- 
session or reversion, an etude d'avoue ’ a shop with a certain clientele 
bringing him such and such an income, which may be doubled by 
the judicious addition of so much capital, and the pretty little 
matrimonial arrangement is concluded (the agent touching his per- 
centage), or broken off, and nobody unhappy, and the world none 
the wiser. The consequences of the system I do not pretend 
personally to know; but if the light literature of a country is a 
reflex of its manners, and French novels are a picture of French 
life, a pretty society must that be into the midst of which the 
London reader may walk in twelve hours from this time of perusal, 
and from which only twenty miles of sea separate us. 

When the old Duke d’lvry, of the ancient, ancient nobility of 
France, an emigrant with Artois, a warrior with Cond^, an exile 
during the reign of the Corsican usurper, a grand prince, a great 
nobleman afterwards, though shorn of nineteen-twentieths of his 
wealth by the Revolution, — when the Duke d’lvry lost his two 
sons, and his son’s son likewise died, as if fate had determined to 
end the direct line of that noble house, which had furnished queens 
to Europe, and renowned chiefs to the Crusaders — being of an 
intrepid spirit, the Duke was ill disposed to yield to his redoubtable 
enemy, in spite of the cruel blows which the latter had inflicted 
upon him ; and when he was more than sixty years of age, three 
months before the July Revolution broke out, a young lady of a 
sufficient nobility, a virgin of sixteen, was brought out of the convent 
of the Sacrd Coeur at Paris, and married with immense splendour 
and ceremony to this princely widower. The most august names 
signed the book of the civil marriage. Madame la Dauphine and 
Madame la Duchesse de Berri complimented the young bride with 
royal favours. Her portrait by Dubufe was in the Exhibition next 
year : a charming young duchess indeed, with black eyes, and black 
ringlets, pearls on her neck, and diamonds in her hair, as beautiful 
as a princess of a fairy tale. M. d’lvry, whose early life may have 
been rather oragious, was yet a gentleman perfectly well conserved. 


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323 


Resolute against fate his enemy (one would fancy fate was of an 
aristocratic turn, and took especial delight in combats with princely 
houses : the Atridse, the Borbonidse, the Ivrys, — the Browns and 
Joneses being of no account), the prince seemed to be determined 
not only to secure a progeny, but to defy age. At sixty he was 
still young, or seemed to be so. His hair was as black as the 
princess’s own, his teeth as white. If you saw him on the Boulevard 
de Gand, sunning among the youthful exquisites there, or riding au 
Bois , with a grace worthy of old Franconi himself, you would take 
him for one of the young men of whom, indeed, up to his marriage, 
he retained a number of the graceful follies and amusements, though 
his manners had a dignity acquired in the old days of Versailles and 
the Trianon, which the moderns cannot hope to imitate. He was 
as assiduous behind the scenes of the Opera as any journalist, or 
any young dandy of ’twenty years. He “ranged himself,” as the 
French phrase is, shortly before his marriage, just like any other 
young bachelor; took leave of Phryne and Aspasie in the coulisses, 
and proposed to devote himself henceforth to his charming young 
wife. 

The affreux catastrophe of July arrived. The ancient Bourbons 
were once more on the road to exile. M. le Due d’lvry, who lost 
his place at Court, his appointments which helped his income very 
much, and his peerage, would no more acknowledge the usurper 
of Neuilly than him of Elba. The ex-peer retired to his terres. 
He barricaded his house in Paris against all supporters of the 
Citizen King; his nearest kinsman, M. de Florae, among the rest, 
who for his part cheerfully took his oath of fidelity, and his seat in 
Louis Philippe’s house of peers, having indeed been accustomed to 
swear to all dynasties for some years past. 

In due time Madame la Duchesse d’lvry gave birth to a child, 
a daughter, whom her noble father received with but small pleasure. 
What the Duke desired was an heir to his name, a Prince de 
Montcontour, to fill the place of the sons and grandsons gone before 
him to join their ancestors in the tomb. No more children however 
blessed the old Duke’s union. Madame d’lvry went the round of 
all the watering-places ; pilgrimages were tried ; vows and gifts to 
all saints supposed to be favourable to the d’lvry family, or to 
families in general ; but the saints turned a deaf ear, — they were 
inexorable since the true religion and the elder Bourbons were 
banished from France. 

Living by themselves in their ancient castle, or their dreary 
mansion of the Faubourg St. Germain, I suppose the Duke and 
Duchess grew tired of one another, as persons who enter into a 
mariage de convenance , nay, as those who light a flaming love- 


324 . 


THE NEWCOMES 


match and run away with one another, will sometimes be found to 
do. A lady of one-and-twenty and a gentleman of sixty-six, alone 
in a great castle, have not unfrequently a third guest at their table, 
who comes without a card, and whom they cannot shut out, though 
they keep their doors closed ever so. His name is Ennui, and 
many a long hour and weary, weary night must such folks pass in 
the unbidden society of this Old Man of the Sea ; this daily guest 
at the board ; this watchful attendant at the fireside ; this assiduous 
companion who will walk out with you; this sleepless restless 
bedfellow. 

At first M. dTvry, that well-conserved nobleman who never 
would allow that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt 
regarding his own youth except an extreme jealousy and avoidance 
of all other young fellows. Very likely Madame la Duchesse may 
have thought men in general dyed their hair, wore stays, and had 
the rheumatism. Coming out of the convent of the Sacrd Coeur, 
how was the innocent young lady to know better? You see, in 
these mariages de convenance , though a coronet may be convenient 
to a beautiful young creature, and a beautiful young creature may 
be convenient to an old gentleman, there are articles which the 
marriage-monger cannot make to convene at all : tempers over which 
M. de Foy and his like have no control, and tastes which cannot 
be put into the marriage settlements. So this couple were unhappy, 
and the Duke and Duchess quarrelled with one another like the 
most vulgar pair who ever fought across a table. 

In this unhappy state of home affairs, Madame took to literature, 
Monsieur to politics. She discovered that she was a great unappre- 
ciated soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom, 
of course she sets her own price on the article. Did you ever 
see the first poems of Madame la Duchesse d’lvry, “ Les Cris de 
TAme ” 1 She used to read them to her very intimate friends, in 
white, with her hair a good deal down her back. They had some 
success. Dubufe having painted her as a Duchess, Scheffer depicted 
her as a Muse. That was in the third year of her marriage, when 
she rebelled against the Duke her husband, insisted on opening 
her salons to art and literature, and, a fervent devotee still, pro- 
posed to unite genius and religion. Poets had interviews with her. 
Musicians came and twanged guitars to her. Her husband, entering 
her room, would fall over the sabre and spurs of Count Almaviva 
from the boulevard, or Don Basilio, with his great sombrero and 
shoe-buckles. The old gentleman was breathless and bewildered 
in following her through all her vagaries. He was of old France, 
she of new. What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and 
these jeunes gens with their Marie Tudors and Tours de Nesle, and 


THE NEWCOMES 


325 


sanguineous histories of queens who sewed their lovers into sacks, 
emperors who had interviews with robber captains in Charlemagne’s 
tomb, Buridans and Hernanis, and stuff? Monsieur le Yicomte 
de Chateaubriand was a man of genius as a writer, certainly 
immortal ; and M. de Lamartine was a young man extremely bien 
pensant , but, ma foi, give him Crdbillon fils, or a bonne farce of 
M. Vadd to make laugh ; for the great sentiments, for the beautiful 
style give him M. de Lormian (although Bonapartist) or the Abb£ 
de Lille. And for the new school ! bah ! these little Dumas, and 
Hugos, and Mussets, what is all that ? “ M. de Lormian shall be 

immortal, monsieur,” he would say, “when all these freluquets 
are forgotten.” After his marriage he frequented the coulisses of 
the Opera no more ; but he was a pretty constant attendant at the 
Theatre Fran^ais, where you might hear him snoring over the chefs- 
d’oeuvre of French tragedy. 

For some little time after 1830, the Duchesse was as great a 
Carlist as her husband could wish ; and they conspired together 
very comfortably at first. Of an adventurous turn, eager for excite- 
ment of all kinds, nothing would have better pleased the Duchesse 
than to follow Madame in her adventurous courses in La Vendde, 
disguised as a boy above all. She was persuaded to stay at home, 
however, and aid the good cause at Paris ; whilst Monsieur le Due 
w^ent off to Brittany to offer his old sword to the mother of his 
king. But Madame was discovered up the chimney at Rennes, 
and all sorts of things were discovered afterwards. The world said 
that our silly little Duchess of Paris was partly the cause of the 
discovery. Spies were put upon her, and to some people she would 
tell anything. M. le Due, on paying his annual visit to august 
exiles at Goritz, was very badly received ; Madame la Dauphin e 
gave him a sermon. He had an awful quarrel with Madame la 
Duchesse on returning to Paris. He provoked Monsieur le Comte 
Tiercelin, le beau Tiercelin, an officer of ordonnance of the Duke 
of Orleans, into a duel, a propos of a cup of coffee in a salon ; he 
actually wounded the beau Tiercelin — he sixty-five years of age ! 
His nephew, M. de Florae, was loud in praise of his kinsman’s 
bravery. 

That pretty figure and complexion which still appear so capti- 
vating in M. Dubufe’s portrait of Madame la Duchesse d’lvry have 
long existed — it must be owned only in paint. “Je la prdfbre h 
l’huile,” the Vicomte de Florae said of his cousin. “ She should 
get her blushes from Monsieur Dubufe — those of her present 
furnishers are not near so natural.” Sometimes the Duchess ap- 
peared with these postiches roses , sometimes of a mortal paleness. 
Sometimes she looked plump, on other occasions woefully thin 


326 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ When she goes into the world,” said the same chronicler, “ ma 
cousine surrounds herself with jupons — c’est pour d^fendre sa 
vertu ; when she is in a devotional mood, she gives up rouge, roast 
meat, and crinoline, and fait maigre absolument.” To spite the 
Duke her husband she took up with the Yicomte de Florae, and 
to please herself she cast him away. She took his brother, the 
Abbd de Florae, for a director, and presently parted from him. 
“ Mon fibre ce saint homme ne parle jamais de Madame la Duchesse 
maintenant,” said the Yicomte. “ She must have confessed to him 
des choses affreuses — oh oui ! — affreuses, ma parole d’honneur ! ” 

The Duke d’lvry being archiroyaliste, Madame la Duchesse 
must make herself ultra-Philippiste. “ Oh oui ! tout ce qu’il y a 
de plus Madame Adelaide au monde ! ” cried Florae. “ She raffoles 
of M. le Rdgent. She used to keep a fast of the day of the supplice 
of Philippe Egalitd, Saint and Martyr. I say used, for to make to 
enrage her husband, and to recall the Abbd my brother, did she not 
advise herself to consult M. le Pasteur Grigou, and to attend the 
preach at his Temple ? When this sheep had brought her shepherd 
back, she dismissed the Pasteur Grigou. Then she tired of M. 
l’Abbd again, and my brother is come out from her, shaking his 
good head. Ah ! she must have put things into it which astonished 
the good Abbd ! You know he has since taken the Dominican 
robe ? My word of honour ! I believe it was terror of her that 
drove him into a convent. You shall see him at Rome, Clive 
Give him news of his elder, and tell him this gross prodigal is 
repenting amongst the swine. My word of honour ! I desire but 
the death of Madame la Yicomtesse de Florae to marry and range 
myself ! 

“ After being Royalist, Philippist, Catholic, Huguenot, Madame 
dTvry must take to Pantheism, to bearded philosophers who believe 
in nothing, not even in clean linen, eclecticism, republicanism, what 
know I ? All her changes have been chronicled by books of her 
composition. ‘Les Demons,’ poem Catholic; Charles IX. is the 
hero, and the demons are shot for the most part at the catastrophe 
of St. Bartholomew. My good mother, all good Catholic as she is, 
was startled by the boldness of this doctrine. Then there came 
‘ Une Dragonnade, par Mme. la Duchesse d’lvry, 5 which is all on 
your side. That was of the time of the Pasteur Grigou, that one. 
The last was ‘ Les Dieux d^chus, pokme en 20 chants, par Mme. 

la D d’l.’ Guard yourself well from this Muse ! If she takes 

a fancy to you she will never leave you alone. If you see her often 
she will fancy you are in love with her, and tell her husband. 
She always tells my uncle — afterwards — after she has quarrelled 
with you and grown tired of you ! Eh ! being in London once, she 


THE NEWCOMES 


327 


had the idea to make herself a Quakre ; wore the costume, con- 
sulted a minister of that culte, and quarrelled with hiih as of rule. 
It appears the Quakers do not beat themselves, otherwise my poor 
uncle must have paid of his person. 

“The turn of the philosophers then came, the chemists, the 
natural historians, what know I 1 ? She made a laboratory in her 
hotel, and rehearsed poisons like Madame de Brinvilliers — she spent 
hours in the Jardin des Plantes. Since she has grown ajfreusement 
maigre and wears mounting robes, she has taken more than ever to 
the idea that she resembles Mary, Queen of Scots. She wears a 
little frill and a little cap. Every man she loves, she says, has 
come to misfortune. She calls her lodgings Lochleven ! Eh ! I 
pity the landlord of Lochleven ! She calls ce gros Blackball, that 
pillar of estaminets, that prince of mauvais-ton, her Bothwell ; little 
Mijaud, the poor little pianist, she named her Rizzio ; young Lord 
Greenhorn, who was here with his Governor, a Monsieur of Oxfort, she 
christened her Darnley, and the minister Anglican, her John Knox ! 
The poor man was quite enchanted ! Beware of this haggard Siren, 
my little Clive ! — mistrust her dangerous song ! Her cave is jonchee 
with the bones of her victims. Be you not one ! ” 

Far from causing Clive to avoid Madame la Duchesse, these 
cautions very likely would have made him only the more eager 
to make her acquaintance, but that a much nobler attraction drew 
him elsewhere. At first, being introduced to Madame d’lvry’s 
salon, he was pleased and flattered, and behaved himself there 
merrily and agreeably enough. He had not studied Horace Yernet 
for nothing; he drew a fine picture of Kew rescuing her from 
the Arabs, with a plenty of sabres, pistols, burnouses, and drome- 
daries. He made a pretty sketch of her little girl Antoinette, and 
a wonderful likeness of Miss O’Grady, the little girl’s governess, 
the mother’s dame de compagnie ; — Miss O’Grady, with the richest 
Milesian brogue, who had been engaged to give Antoinette the 
pure English accent. But the French lady’s great eyes and painted 
smiles would not bear comparison with Ethel’s natural brightness 
and beauty. Clive, who had been appointed painter in ordinary to 
the Queen of Scots, neglected his business, and went over to the 
English faction ; so did one or two more of the Princess’s followers, 
leaving her Majesty by no means well pleased at their desertion. 

There had been many quarrels between M. d’lvry and his 
next of kin. Political differences, private differences — a long story. 
The Duke, who had been wild himself, could not pardon the 
Vicomte de Florae for being wild. Efforts at reconciliation had 
been made, which ended unsuccessfully. The Vicomte de Florae 


328 


THE HEWCOMES 


had been allowed for a brief space to be intimate with the chief 
of his family, and then had been dismissed for being too intimate. 
Right or wrong, the Duke was jealous of all young men who 
approached the Duchesse. “He is suspicious,” Madame de Florae 
indignantly said, “because he remembers; and he thinks other 
men are like himself.” The Vicomte discreetly said, “ My cousin 
has paid me the compliment to be jealous of me,” and acquiesced 
in his banishment with a shrug. 

During the emigration the old Lord Kew had been very kind 
to exiles, M. d’lvry amongst the number ; and that nobleman was 
anxious to return to all Lord Kew’s family when they came to 
France the hospitality which he had received himself in England. 
He still remembered or professed to remember Lady Kew’s beauty. 
How many women are there, awful of aspect at present, of whom 
the same pleasing legend is not narrated ! It must be true, for 
do not they themselves confess it? I know of few things more 
remarkable or suggestive of philosophic contemplation than those 
physical changes. 

When the old Duke and the old Countess met together and 
talked confidentially, their conversation bloomed into a jargon 
wonderful to hear. Old scandals woke up, old naughtinesses rose 
out of their graves, and danced, and smirked, and gibbered again, 
like those wicked nuns whom Bertram and Robert le Diable evoke 
from their sepulchres whilst the bassoon performs a diabolical in- 
cantation. The Brighton Pavilion was tenanted ; Ranelagh and 
the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks ; Perdita was 
found again, and walked a minuet with the Prince of Wales. 
Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York danced together — a pretty 
dance. The old Duke wore a jabot and ailes-de-pigeon , the old 
Countess a hoop, and a cushion on her head. If haply the young 
folks came in, the elders modified their recollections, and Lady 
Kew brought honest old King George and good old ugly Queen 
Charlotte to the rescue. Her Ladyship was sister of the Marquis 
of Steyne, and in some respects resembled that lamented nobleman. 
Their family had relations in France (Lady Kew had always a 
pied-a-terre at Paris, a bitter little scandal-shop, where les bien- 
pensants assembled and retailed the most awful stories against 
the reigning dynasty). It was she who handed over le petit Kiou, 
when quite a boy, to Monsieur and Madame d’lvry, to be lance 
into Parisian society. He was treated as a son of the family 
by the Duke, one of whose many Christian names his Lordship 
Francis George Xavier Earl of Kew and Viscount Walham bears. 
If Lady Kew hated any one (and she could hate very considerably) 
she hated her daughter-in-law Walham’s widow, and the Methodists 


THE NEWCOMES 


329 


who surrounded her. Kew remain among a pack of psalm-singing 
old women and parsons with his mother ! Fi done ! Frank was 
Lady Kew’s boy, she would form him, marry him, leave him her 
money if he married to her liking, and show him life. And so 
she showed it to him. 

Have you taken your children to the National Gallery in London, 
and shown them the “ Marriage k la Mode ” ? Was the artist 
exceeding the privilege of his calling in painting the catastrophe in 
which those guilty people all suffer ? If this fable were not true, 
if many and many of your young men of pleasure had not acted it, 
and rued the moral, I would tear the page. You know that in our 
Nursery Tales there is commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad 
one to mislead the young prince. You perhaps feel that in your 
own life there is a Good Principle imploring you to come into its 
kind bosom, and a Bad Passion which tempts you into its arms. 
Be of easy minds, good-natured people ! Let us disdain surprises 
and coups-de-tkeatre for once ; and tell those good souls who are 
interested about him, that there is a Good Spirit coming to the 
rescue of our young Lord Kew. 

Surrounded by her court and royal attendants, La Beine Marie 
used graciously to attend the play-table, where luck occasionally 
declared itself for and against her Majesty. Her appearance used 
to create not a little excitement in the Saloon of Roulette, the game 
which she patronised, it being more “fertile of emotions” than the 
slower Trente-et-Quarante. She dreamed of numbers, had favourite 
incantations by which to conjure them ; noted the figures made by 
peels of peaches and so forth, the numbers of houses, on hackney- 
coaches — was superstitious comme toutes les antes poetiques. She 
commonly brought a beautiful agate bonbonnikre full of gold pieces 
when she played. It was wonderful to see her grimaces ; to watch 
her behaviour; her appeals to Heaven, her delight and despair. 
Madame la Baronne de la Cruchecassde played on one side of her, 
Madame la Comtesse de Schlangenbad on the other. When she 
had lost all her money her Majesty would condescend to borrow — 
not from those ladies : — knowing the royal peculiarity, they never 
had any money; they always lost; they swiftly pocketed their 
winnings and never left a mass on the table, or quitted it, as 
courtiers will, when they saw luck was going against their sovereign. 
The officers of her household were Count Punter, a Hanoverian, the 
Cavaliere Spada, Captain Blackball of a mysterious English regiment, 
which might be any one of the hundred and twenty in the Army 
List, and other noblemen and gentlemen, Greeks, Russians, and 
Spaniards. Mr. and Mrs. Jones (of England) — who had made the 
Princess’s acquaintance at Bagnkres (where her lord still remained 


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<3 


in the gout) and persevering! y followed her all the way to Baden — 
were dazzled by the splendour of the company in which they found 
themselves. Miss Jones wrote such letters to her dearest friend 
Miss Thompson, Cambridge Square, London, as caused that young 
person to crever with envy. Bob Jones, who had grown a pair 
of mustachios since he left home, began to think slightingly of poor 
little Fanny Thompson, now he had got into “ the best continental 
society.” Might not he quarter a countess’s coat on his brougham 
along with the Jones’s arms, or more slap-up still, have the two 
shields painted on the panels with the coronet over 1 ? “Do you 
know the Princess calls herself the Queen of Scots and she calls me 
Julian Avenel ? ” says Jones delighted to Clive, who wrote me about 
the transmogrification of our schoolfellow, an attorney’s son, whom 
I recollected a snivelling little boy at Grey Friars. “ I say, New- 
come, the Princess is going to establish an order,” cried Bob in 
ecstasy. Every one of her aides-de-camp had a bunch of orders at 
his button, excepting, of course, poor Jones. 

Like all persons who beheld her, when Miss Newcome and her 
party made their appearance at Baden, Monsieur de Florae was 
enraptured with her beauty. “ I speak of it constantly before the 
Duchesse. I know it pleases her,” so the Yicomte said. “You 
should have seen her looks when your friend Monsieur Jones praised 
Miss Newcome ! She ground her teeth with fury. Tiens, ce petit 
sournois de Kiou ! He always spoke of her as a mere sac d’argent 
that he was about to marry — an ingot of the cit^— une fille de Lord 
Maire. Have all English bankers such pearls of daughters 1 If the 
Vicomtesse de Florae had but quitted the earth, dont elle fait l’orne- 
ment — I would present myself to the charmante Meess and ride a 
steeple-chase with Kiou ! ” That he should win it the Viscount 
never doubted. 

When Lady Ann Newcome first appeared in the ball-room at 
Baden, Madame la Duchesse d’lvry begged the Earl of Kew (notre 
Jillevl she called him) to present her to his aunt Miladi and her 
charming daughter. “ My filleul had not prepared me for so much 
grace,” she said, turning a look towards Lord Kew which caused 
his Lordship some embarrassment. Her kindness and graciousness 
were extreme. Her caresses and compliments never ceased all the 
evening. She told the mother, and the daughter too, that she had 
never seen any one so lovely as Ethel. Whenever she saw Lady 
Ann’s children in the walks she ran to them (so that Captain 
Blackball and Count Punter, A.D.C., were amazed at her tender- 
ness), she dtouffe ’ d them with kisses. What lilies and roses ! What 
lovely little creatures ! What companions for her own Antoinette ! 
“ This is your governess, Miss Quigli ; Mademoiselle, you must let 


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331 


me present you to Miss O’Gr&li, your compatriot, and I hope your 
children will be always together.” The Irish Protestant governess 
scowled at the Irish Catholic — there was a Boyne Water between 
them. 

Little Antoinette, a lonely little girl, was glad to find any 
companions. “Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told 
them in her artless way. “ She never kisses me at home.” One 
day when Lord Kew with Florae and Clive was playing with the 
children, Antoinette said, “ Pourquoi ne venez-vous plus chez nous, 
M. de Kew ? And why does mamma say you are a Idche ? She 
said so yesterday to ces messieurs. And why does mamma say thou 
art only a vaurien, mon cousin 1 Thou art always very good for me. 
I love thee better than all those messieurs. Ma tante Florae a 6t6 
bonne pour moi h Paris aussi. Ah ! qu’elle a 6t6 bpnne ! ” 

“ C’est que les anges aiment bien les petits chdrubins, and my 
mother is an angel, seest thou,” cries Florae, kissing her. 

“ Thy mother is not dead,” said little Antoinette, “ then why 
dost thou cry, my cousin ? ” And the three spectators were touched 
by this little scene and speech. 

Lady Ann Newcome received the caresses and compliments of 
Madame la Duchesse with marked coldness on the part of one 
commonly so very good-natured. Ethel’s instinct told her that 
there was something wrong in this woman, and she shrank from 
her with haughty reserve. The girl’s conduct was not likely to 
please the French lady, but she never relaxed in her smiles and her 
compliments, her caresses, and her professions of admiration. She 
was present when Clara Pulleyn fell; and, prodigal of cdlineries 
and consolation, and shawls and scent-bottles, to the unhappy 
young lady, she would accompany her home. She inquired per- 
petually after the health of cette pauvre petite Miss Clara. Oh, 
how she railed against ces Anglaises and their prudery ! Can you 
fancy her and her circle, the tea-table set in the twilight that even- 
ing, the court assembled, Madame de la Cruchecassde and Madame de 
Schlangenbad ; and their whiskered humble servants, Baron Punter, 
and Count Spada, and Marquis Iago, and Prince Iachimo, and 
worthy Captain Blackball? Can you fancy a moonlight conclave, 
and ghouls feasting on the fresh corpse of a reputation : — the jibes 
and sarcasms, the laughing and the gnashing of teeth 1 How they 
tear the dainty limbs, and relish the tender morsels ! 

“ The air of this place is not good for you, believe me, my little 
Kew ; it is dangerous. Have pressing affairs in England ; let your 
chateau burn down ; or your intendant run away, and pursue him. 
Partez, mon petit Kiou ; partez, or evil will come of it.” Such was 
the advice which a friend of Lord Kew gave the young nobleman. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


BARNES'S COURTSHIP 

E THEL had made various attempts to become intimate with 
her future sister-in-law ; had walked, and ridden, and talked 
with Lady Clara before Barnes’s arrival. She had come 
away not very much impressed with respect for Lady Clara’s 
mental powers; indeed we have said that Miss Ethel was rather 
more prone to attack women than to admire them, and was a little 
hard upon the fashionable young persons of her acquaintance and 
sex. In after life, care and thought subdued her pride, and she 
learned to look at society more good-naturedly ; but at this time 
and for some years after, she was impatient of commonplace people, 
and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very 
much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come 
out, and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance 
confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize’s jolly voice, and nibble 
crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph 
with the bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in 
the shade. Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of 
lovers possibly, pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their 
own little jokes, prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until 
mamma appears with her awful didactic countenance, or the gover- 
ness with her dry moralities, and the colloquy straightway ceases, 
the laughter stops, the chirp of the harmless little birds is hushed ? 
Lady Clara being of a timid nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel 
as of her father and mother ; whereas her next sister, a brisk young 
creature of seventeen, who was of the order of romps or tomboys, 
was by no means afraid of Miss Newcome, and indeed a much 
greater favourite with her than her placid elder sister. 

Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their 
sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful 
nights, and so forth ; but it is only in very sentimental novels that 
people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion ; and, I 
believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed. 
Tom is jilted — is for a while in a dreadful state — bores all his male 
acquaintances with his groans and his frenzy — rallies from the com- 


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333 


plaint — eats his dinner very kindly — takes an interest in the next 
turf event, and is found at Newmarket, as usual, bawling out the 
odds which he will give or take. Miss has her paroxysm and re- 
covery — Madame Crinoline’s new importations from Paris interest 
the young creature — she deigns to consider whether pink or blue 
will become her most — she conspires with her maid to make the 
spring morning dresses answer for the autumn — she resumes her 
books, piano, and music (giving up certain songs perhaps that she 
used to sing) — she waltzes with the Captain — gets a colour — 
waltzes longer, better, and ten times quicker than Lucy, who is 
dancing with the Major — replies in an animated manner to the 
Captain’s delightful remarks — takes a little supper — and looks 
quite kindly at him before she pulls up the carriage windows. 

Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcome, and many other 
men share in that antipathy, but all ladies do not. It is a fact, 
that Barnes, when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant 
fellow. He is dreadfully satirical, that is certain ; but many 
persons are amused by those dreadfully satirical young men ; and 
to hear fun made of our neighbours, even of some of our friends, 
does not make us very angry. Barnes is one of the very best 
waltzers in all society, that is the truth ; whereas it must be con- 
fessed Some One Else was very heavy and slow, his great foot 
always crushing you, and he always begging your pardon. Barnes 
whirls a partner round the room ages after she is ready to faint. 
What wicked fun he makes of other people when he stops ! He is 
not handsome, but in his face there is something odd-looking and 
distinguished. It is certain he has beautiful small feet and hands. 

He comes every day from the City, drops in, in his quiet un- 
obtrusive way, and drinks tea at five o’clock ; always brings a 
budget of the funniest stories with him, makes mamma laugh, 
Clara laugh, Henrietta, who is in the schoolroom still, die of 
laughing. Papa has the highest opinion of Mr. Newcome as a 
man of business ; if he had had such a friend in early life his 
affairs would not be where they now are, poor dear kind papa ! 
Do they want to go anywhere, is not Mr. Newcome always ready? 
Did he not procure that delightful room for them to witness the 
Lord Mayor’s show ; and make Clara die of laughing at those odd 
City people at the Mansion House ball? He is at every party, 
and never tired though he gets up so early ; he waltzes with nobody 
else ; he is always there to put Lady Clara in the carriage ; at the 
Drawing-room he looked quite handsome in his uniform of the 
Newcome Hussars, bottle-green and silver lace ; he speaks politics 
so exceedingly well with papa and gentlemen after dinner ; he is 
a sound Conservative full of practical good sense and information, 


334 


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with no dangerous new-fangled ideas, such as young men have. 
When poor dear Sir Brian Newcome’s health gives way quite, 
Mr. Newcome will go into Parliament, and then he will resume 
the old barony which has been in abeyance in the family since the 
reign of Richard the Third. They had fallen quite quite low. 
Mr. Newcome’s grandfather came to London with a satchel on his 
back, like Whittington. Isn’t it romantic % 

This process has been going on for months. It is not in one 
day that poor Lady Clara has been made to forget the past, and 
to lay aside her mourning. Day after day, very likely, the un- 
deniable faults and many peccadilloes of — of that other person, 
have been exposed to her. People around the young lady may 
desire to spare her feelings, but can have no interest in screening 
poor Jack from condign reprobation. A wild prodigal — a disgrace 
to his order — a son of old Highgate’s leading such a life, and making 
such a scandal ! Lord Dorking believes Mr. Belsize to be an aban- 
doned monster and fiend in human shape; gathers and relates 
all the stories that ever have been told to the young man’s dis- 
advantage, and of these be sure there are enough, and speaks of 
him with transports of indignation. At the end of months of 
unwearied courtship, Mr. Barnes Newcome is honestly accepted, 
and Lady Clara is waiting for him at Baden, not unhappy to 
receive him ; when walking on the promenade with her father, the 
ghost of her dead love suddenly rises before her, and the young 
lady faints to the ground. 

When Barnes Newcome thinks fit he can be perfectly placable 
in his demeanour and delicate in his conduct. What he said upon 
this painful subject was delivered with the greatest propriety. He 
did not for one moment consider that Lady Clara’s agitation arose 
from any present feeling in Mr. Belsize’s favour, but that she was 
naturally moved by the remembrance of the past, and the sudden 
appearance which recalled it. “ And but that a lady’s name should 
never be made the subject of dispute between men,” Newcome said 
to Lord Dorking, with great dignity, “and that Captain Belsize 
has opportunely quitted the place, I should certainly have chastised 
him. He and another adventurer, against whom I have had to 
warn my own family, have quitted Baden this afternoon. I am 
glad that both are gone, Captain Belsize especially ; for my temper, 
my Lord, is hot, and I do not think I should have commanded it.” 

Lord Kew, when the elder lord informed him of this admirable 
speech of Barnes Newcome’s, upon whose character, prudence, and 
dignity the Earl of Dorking pronounced a fervent eulogium, shook 
his head gravely, and said, “Yes, Barnes was a dead shot, and a 
most determined fellow ; ” and did not burst out laughing until he 


THE NEWCOMES 


335 


and Lord Dorking had parted. Then to be sure he took his fill of 
laughter, he told the story to Ethel, he complimented Barnes on 
his heroic self-denial ; the joke of the thundering big stick was 
nothing to it. Barnes Newcome laughed too ; he had plenty of 
humour, Barnes. “ I think you might have whopped Jack when 
he came out from his interview with the Dorkings,” Kew said; 
“ the poor devil was so bewildered and weak, that Alfred might 
have thrashed him. At other times you would find it more difficult, 
Barnes, my man.” Mr. B. Newcome resumed his dignity ; said a 
joke was a joke, and there was quite enough of this one ; which 
assertion we may be sure he conscientiously made. 

That meeting and parting between the old lovers passed with a 
great deal of calm and propriety on both sides. Miss’s parents of 
course were present when Jack at their summons waited upon them 
and their daughter, and made his hangdog bow. My Lord Dorking 
said (poor Jack, in the anguish of his heart, had poured out the 
story to Clive Newcome afterwards), “Mr. Belsize, I have to 
apologise for words which I used in my heat yesterday, and which 
I recall and regret, as I am sure you do, that there should have been 
any occasion for them.” 

Mr. Belsize, looking at the carpet, said he was very sorry. 

Lady Dorking here remarked, that as Captain Belsize was now 
at Baden, he might wish to hear from Lady Clara Pulleyn’s own 
lips that the engagement into which she had entered was formed by 
herself, certainly with the consent and advice of her family. “Is it 
not so, my dear ? ” 

Lady Clara said, “Yes, mamma,” with a low curtsey. 

“We have now to wish you good-bye, Charles Belsize,” said my 
Lord, with some feeling. “ As your relative, and your father’s old 
friend, I wish you well. I hope your future course in life may not 
be so unfortunate as the past year. I request that we may part 
friends. Good-bye, Charles. Clara, shake hands with Captain 
Belsize. My Lady Dorking, you will please to give Charles your 
hand. You have known him since he was a child ; and — and- — we 
are sorry to be obliged to part in this way.” In this wise Mr. Jack 
Belsize’s tooth was finally extracted ; and for the moment we wish 
him and his brother patient a good journey. 

Little lynx-eyed Dr. von Finck, who attends most of the polite 
company at Baden, drove ceaselessly about the place that day, with 
the real version of the fainting-fit story, about which we may be 
sure the wicked and malicious, and the uninitiated, had a hundred 
absurd details. Lady Clara ever engaged to Captain Belsize % 
Fiddle-de-dee ! Everybody knew the Captain’s affairs, and that he 
could no more think of marrying than flying. Lady Clara faint at 


336 


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seeing him ! she fainted before he came up ; she was always fainting, 
and had done so thrice in the last week to his knowledge. Lord 
Dorking had a nervous affection of his right arm, aiid was always 
shaking his stick. He did not say Villain, he said William ; 
Captain Belsize’s name is William. It is not so in the Peerage? 
Is he called Charles in the Peerage ? Those Peerages are always 
wrong. These candid explanations of course had their effect. 
Wicked tongues were of course instantaneously silent. People were 
entirely satisfied ; they always are. The next night being Assembly 
night, Lady Clara appeared at the rooms and danced with Lord 
Kew and Mr. Barnes Newcome. All the society was as gracious 
and good-humoured as possible, and there was no more question 
of fainting than of burning down the Conversation House. But 
Madame de Cruchecassde, and Madame de Schlangenbad, and those 
horrid people whom the men speak to, but whom the women salute 
with silent curtseys, persisted in declaring that there was no prude 
like an English prude ; and to Dr. Finck’s oaths, assertions, ex- 
planations, only replied, with a shrug of their bold shoulders, 
“ Taisez-vous, Docteur, vous n’etes qu’une vieille bete.” 

Lady Kew was at the rooms, uncommonly gracious. Miss 
Ethel took a few turns of the waltz with Lord Kew, but this 
nymph looked more farouche than upon ordinary days. Bob 
Jones, who admired her hugely, asked leave to waltz with her, and 
entertained her with recollections of Clive Newcome at school. He 
remembered a fight in which Clive had been engaged, and recounted 
that action to Miss Newcome, who seemed to be interested. He 
was pleased to deplore Clive’s fancy for turning artist, and Miss 
Newcome recommended him to have his likeness taken, for she 
said his appearance was exceedingly picturesque. He was going 
on with further prattle, but she suddenly cut Mr. Jones short, 
making him a bow, and going to sit down by Lady Kew. “ And 
the next day, sir,” said Bob, with whom the present writer had 
the happiness of dining at a mess dinner at the Upper Temple, 
“ when I met her on the walk, sir, she cut me as dead as a stone. 
The airs those swells give themselves is enough to make any man 
turn republican.” 

Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult 
temper. She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to 
whom Ethel always was kind, and her father whom, since his 
illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she 
did battle with Lady Kew repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia’s 
rescue, on whom the Countess, as usual, exercised her powers of 
torturing. She made Barnes quail before the shafts of contempt 
which she flashed at him ; and she did not spare Lord Kew, whose 


THE NEWCOMES 


337 


good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The old queen-mother 
was fairly afraid of her ; she even left off beating Lady Julia when 
Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young girl’s 
absence, but trying, in her presence, to soothe and please her. 
Against Lord Kew the young girl’s anger was most unjust, and 
the more cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a 
hard word of any one mortal soul, and carrying no arms, should 
have been assaulted by none. But his very good-nature seemed to 
make his young opponent only the more wrathful ; she shot because 
his honest breast was bare ; it bled at the wounds which she 
inflicted. Her relatives looked surprised at her cruelty, and the 
young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by 
his cousin’s wanton ill-humour. 

Lady Kew fancied she understood the cause of this peevishness, 
and remonstrated with Miss Ethel. “ Shall we write a letter to 
Lucerne, and order Dick Tinto back again 1 ?” said her Ladyship. 
“ Are you such a fool, Ethel, as to be hankering after that young 
scapegrace, and his yellow beard 1 His drawings are very pretty. 
Why, I think he might earn a couple of hundred a year as a 
teacher, and nothing would be easier than to break your engagement 
with Kew, and whistle the drawing-master back again.” 

Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive’s drawings, lighted a 
taper, carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a 
blaze. “A very pretty piece of work,” says Lady Kew, “and 
which proves satisfactorily that you don’t care for the young Clive 
at all. Have we arranged a correspondence *? We are cousins, you 
know; we may write pretty cousinly letters to one another.” A 
month before the old lady would have attacked her with other 
arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now, and dared to use no 
coarser weapons. “ Oh ! ” cried Ethel in a transport, “ what a 
life ours is, and how you buy and sell, and haggle over your 
children ! It is not Clive I care about, poor boy ! Our ways of 
life are separate. I cannot break from my own family, and I know 
very well how you would receive him in it. Had he money, it 
would be different. You would receive him, and welcome him, 
and hold out your hands to him ; but he is only a poor painter, 
and we, forsooth, are bankers in the City; and he comes among 
us on sufferance, like those concert-singers whom mamma treats 
with so much politeness, and who go down and have supper by 
themselves. Why should they not be as good as we are 1 ” 

“ M. de C , my dear, is of a noble family,” interposed Lady 

Kew ; “ when he has given up singing and made his fortune, no 
doubt he can go back into the world again.” 

“ Made his fortune ? yes,” Ethel continued, “ that is the cry. 

8 Y 


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THE NEWCOMES 


There never were, since the world began, people so unblushingly 
sordid ! We own it, and are proud of it. We barter rank against 
money, and money against rank, day after day. Why did you 
marry my father to my mother 1 Was it for his witl You know 
he might have been an angel and you would have scorned him. 
Your daughter was bought with papa’s money as surely as ever 
Newcome was. Will there be no day when this mammon-worship 
will cease among us ? ” 

“ Not in my time or yours, Ethel,” the elder said, not unkindly ; 
perhaps she thought of a day long ago, before she was sold herself. 

“We are sold,” the young girl went on ; “we are as much 
sold as Turkish women; the only difference being that our masters 
may have but one Circassian at a time. No, there is no freedom 
for us. I wear my green ticket, and wait till my master comes. 
But every day as I think of our slavery, I revolt against it more, 
That poor wretch, that poor girl whom my brother is to marry, 
why did she not revolt and fly 1 I would, if I loved a man suffi- 
ciently, loved him better than the -world, than wealth, than rank, 
than fine houses and titles, — and I feel I love these best, — I would 
give up all to follow him. But what can I be with my name and 
my parents ? I belong to the world like all the rest of my family. 
It is you who have bred us up ; you who are answerable for us. 
Why are there no convents to which we can fly 1 ? You make a 
fine marriage for me ; you provide me with a good husband, a 
kind soul, not very wise, but very kind ; you make me what you 
call happy, and I would rather be at the plough like the women 
here.” 

“No, you wouldn’t, Ethel,” replies the grandmother dryly. 
“These are the fine speeches of schoolgirls. The showers of rain 
would spoil your complexion — you would be perfectly tired in an 
hour, and come back to luncheon — you belong to your belongings, 
my dear, and are not better than the rest of the world very good- 
looking, as you know perfectly well, and not very good-tempered. 
It is lucky that Kew is. Calm your temper, at least before mar- 
riage ; such a prize does not fall to a pretty girl’s lot every day. 
Why, you sent him away quite scared by your cruelty ; and if he 
is not playing at roulette, or at billiards, I dare say he is thinking 
what a little termagant you are, and that he had best pause while 
it is yet time. Before I was married, your poor grandfather never 
knew I had a temper ; of after-days I say nothing ; but trials are 
good for all of us, and he bore his like an angel.” 

Lady Kew, too, on this occasion at least, was admirably good- 
humoured. She also when it was necessary could put a restraint 
on her temper, and having this match very much to heart, chose 


THE NEWCOMES 339 

to coax and to soothe her granddaughter rather than to endeavour 
to scold and frighten her. 

“Why do you desire this marriage so much, grandmamma'?” 
the girl asked. “ My cousin is not very much in love, — at least 
I should fancy not,” she added, blushing. “I am bound to own 
Lord Kew is not in the least eager, and I think if you were to 
tell him to wait for five years, he would be quite willing. Why 
should you he so very anxious f ” 

“ Why, my dear *? Because I think young ladies who want to 
go and work in the fields should make hay while the sun shines ; 
because I think it is high time that Kew should ranger himself ; 
because I am sure he will make the best husband, and Ethel the 
prettiest Countess in England.” And the old lady, seldom exhibit- 
ing any signs of affection, looked at her granddaughter very fondly. 
From her Ethel looked up into the glass, which very likely repeated 
on its shining face the truth her elder had just uttered. Shall we 
quarrel with the girl for that dazzling reflection ; for owning that 
charming truth, and submitting to the conscious triumph 1 ? Give 
her her part of vanity, of youth, of desire to rule and be admired. 
Meanwhile Mr. Clive’s drawings have been crackling in the fireplace 
at her feet, and the last spark of that combustion is twinkling out 
unheeded. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

LADY KEW AT THE CONGRESS 


W HEN Lady Kew heard that Madame d’lvry was at Baden, 
and was informed at once of the French lady’s gracious- 
ness towards the Newcome family, and of her fury against 
Lord Kew, the old Countess gave a loose to that energetic temper 
with which nature had gifted her; a temper which she tied up 
sometimes and kept from barking and biting ; but which when 
unmuzzled was an animal of whom all her Ladyship’s family had 
a just apprehension. Not one of them but in his or her time had 
been wounded, lacerated, tumbled over, otherwise frightened or injured 
by this unruly brute. The cowards brought it sops and patted it ; 
the prudent gave it a clear berth, and walked round so as not to 
meet it ; but woe be to those of the family who had to bring the 
meal, and prepare the litter, and (to speak respectfully) share the 
kennel with Lady Kew’s “ Black *Dog ” ! Surely a fine furious 
temper, if accompanied with a certain magnanimity and bravery 
which often go together with it, is one of the most precious and 
fortunate gifts with which a gentleman or lady can be endowed. 
A person always ready to fight is certain of the greatest considera- 
tion amongst his or her family circle. The lazy grow tired of 
contending with him ; the timid coax and flatter him ; and as 
almost every one is timid or lazy, a bad-tempered man is sure to 
have his own way. It is he who commands, and all the others 
obey. If he is a gourmand, he has what he likes for dinner ; and 
the tastes of all the rest are subservient to him. She (we playfully 
transfer the gender, as a bad temper is of both sexes) has the place 
which she likes best in the drawing-room; nor do her parents, nor 
her brothers and sisters, venture to take her favourite chair. If 
she wants to go to a party, mamma will dress herself in spite of 
her headache ; and papa, who hates those dreadful soirees , will 
go upstairs after dinner and put on his poor old white neckcloth, 
though he has been toiling at chambers all day, and must be there 
early in the morning — he will go out with her, we say, and stay 
for the cotillon. If the family are taking their tour in the summer, 
it is she who ordains whither they shall go, and when they shall 


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stop. If he comes home late, the dinner is kept for him, and not 
one dares to say a word, though ever so hungry. If he is in a 
good humour, how every one frisks about and is happy ! How the 
servants jump up at his bell and run to wait upon him ! How 
they sit up patiently, and how eagerly they rush out to fetch cabs 
in the rain ! Whereas for you and me, who have the tempers 
of angels, and never were known to be angry or to complain, 
nobody cares whether we are pleased or not. Our wives go to the 
milliners and send us the bill, and we pay it ; our John finishes 
reading the newspaper before he answers our bell, and brings 
it to us ; our sons loll in the arm-chair which we should like ; 
fill the house with their young men, and smoke in the dining-room ; 
our tailors fit us badly ; our butchers give us the youngest mutton ; 
our tradesmen dun us much more quickly than other people’s, 
because they know we are good-natured ; and our servants go out 
whenever they like, and openly have their friends to supper in the 
kitchen. When Lady Kew said Sic volo , sic jubeo, I promise you 
few persons of her Ladyship’s belongings stopped, before they did 
her biddings, to ask her reasons. 

If, which very seldom happens, there are two such imperious 
and domineering spirits in a family, unpleasantries of course will 
arise from their contentions ; or if, out of doors, the family Bajazet 
meets with some other violent Turk, dreadful battles ensue, all the 
allies on either side are brought in, and the surrounding neighbours 
perforce engage in the quarrel. This was unluckily the case in the 
present instance. Lady Kew, unaccustomed to have her will 
questioned at home, liked to impose it abroad. She judged the 
persons around her with great freedom of speech. Her opinions 
were quoted, as people’s sayings will be ; and if she made bitter 
speeches, depend on it they lost nothing in the carrying. She was 
furious against Madame la Duchesse d’lvry, and exploded in various 
companies whenever that lady’s name was mentioned. “ Why was 
she not with her husband ? Why was the poor old Duke left to his 
gout, and this woman trailing through the country with her vagabond 
court of billiard-markers at her heels'? She to call herself Mary, 
Queen of Scots, forsooth ! — well, she merited the title in some 
respects, though she had not murdered her husband as yet. Ah ! 
I should like to be Queen Elizabeth if the Duchess is Queen of 
Scots ! ” said the old lady, shaking her old fist. And these senti- * 
ments being uttered in public, upon the Promenade, to mutual 
friends, of course the Duchess had the benefit of Lady Kew’s re- 
marks a few minutes after they were uttered; and her Grace, and 
the distinguished princes, counts, and noblemen in her court, 
designated as billiard-markers by the old Countess, returned the 


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latter’s compliments with pretty speeches of their own. Scandals 
were dug up respecting her Ladyship, so old that one would have 
thought them forgotten these forty years, — so old that they happened 
before most of the Newcomes now extant were born, and surely, 
therefore, are out of the province of this contemporary biography. 
Lady Kew was indignant with her daughter (there were some 
moments when no conduct of her friends met with her Ladyship’s 
approbation) even for the scant civility with which Lady Ann had 
received the Duchess’s advances. “ Leave a card upon her ! — yes, 
send a card by one of your footmen ; but go in to see her, because 
she was at the window and saw you drive up ! Are you mad, 
Ann ? That was the very reason you should not have come out of 
your carriage. But you are so weak and good-natured, that if a 
highwayman stopped you, you would say, * Thank you, sir,’ as you 
gave him your purse : yes, and if Mrs. Macheath called on you 
afterwards, you would return the visit ! ” 

Even had these speeches been made about the Duchess, and 
some of them not addressed to her, things might have gone on 
pretty well. If we quarrelled with all the people who abuse us 
behind our backs, and began to tear their eyes out as soon as we 
set ours on them, what a life it would be, and when should we have 
any quiet? Backbiting is all fair in society. Abuse me, and I 
will abuse you ; but let us be friends when we meet. Have not 
we all entered a dozen rooms, and been sure, from the countenances 
of the amiable persons present, that they had been discussing our 
little peculiarities, perhaps as we were on the stairs? Was our 
visit, therefore, the less agreeable ? Did we quarrel and say hard 
words to one another’s faces? No — we wait until some of our dear 
friends take their leave, and then comes our turn. My back is at 
my neighbour’s service; as soon as that is turned let him make 
what faces he thinks proper ; but when we meet we grin and shake 
hands, like well-bred folk, to whom clean linen is not more neces- 
sary than a clean sweet-looking countenance, and a nicely got up 
smile, for company. 

Here was Lady Kew’s mistake. She wanted, for some reason, 
to drive Madame d’lvry out of Baden, and thought there were no 
better means of effecting this object than by using the high hand, 
and practising those frowns upon the Duchess which had scared 
away so many other persons. But the Queen of Scots was resolute, 
too, and her band of courtiers fought stoutly round about her. 
Some of them could not pay their bills, and could not retreat; 
others had courage, and did not choose to fly. Instead of coaxing 
and soothing Madame d’lvry, Madame de Kew thought by a brisk 
attack to rout and dislodge her. She began on almost the very first 


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occasion when the ladies met. “ I was so sorry to hear that 
Monsieur le Due was ill at Bagnkres, Madame la Duchesse,” the old 
lady began on their very first meeting, after the usual salutations 
had taken place. 

“ Madame la Comtesse is very kind to interest herself in Monsieur 
dTvry’s health. Monsieur le Due at his age is not disposed to travel. 
You, dear Miladi, are more happy in being always able to retain the 
goUt des voyages ! ” 

“ I come to my family, my dear Duchess ! ” 

“How charmed they must be to possess you ! Miladi Ann, you 
must be inexpressibly consoled by the presence of a mother so tender ! 
Permit me to present Madame la Comtesse de la Cruchecassde to 
Madame la Comtesse de Kew. Miladi is sister to that amiable 
Marquis of Steyne, whom you have known, Ambrosine ! Madame 
la Baronne de Schlangenbad, Miladi Kew. Do you not see the 
resemblance to Milor These ladies have enjoyed the hospitalities 
— the splendours of Gaunt House They were of those famous 
routs of which the charming Mistress Crawley, la semillante Becki, 
made part ! How sad the H6tel de Gaunt must be under the 
present circumstances ! Have you heard, Miladi, of the charming 
Mistress Becki ? Monsieur le Due describes her as the most spiritu- 
elle English woman he ever met.” The Queen of Scots turns and 
whispers her lady of honour, and shrugs, and taps her forehead. 
Lady Kew knows that Madame d’lvry speaks of her nephew, 
the present Lord Steyne, who is not in his right mind. The 
Duchess looks round, and sees a friend in the distance whom 
she beckons. “Comtesse, you know already Monsieur the Cap- 
tain Blackball 1 He makes the delight of our society ! ” A 
dreadful man with a large cigar, a florid waistcoat, and billiards 
written on his countenance, swaggers forward at the Duchess's 
summons. The Countess of Kew has not gained much by her 
attack. She has been presented to Cruchecassde and Schlangenbad. 
She sees herself on the eve of becoming the acquaintance of Captain 
Blackball. 

“ Permit me, Duchess, to choose my English friends at least for 
myself,” says Lady Kew, drumming her foot. 

“ But, madam, assuredly ! You do not love this good Monsieur 
de Blackball ? Eh ! the English manners are droll, pardon me for 
saying so. It is wonderful how proud you are as a nation, and how 
ashamed you are of your compatriots ! ” 

“ There are some persons who are ashamed of nothing, Madame 
la Duchesse,” cries Lady Kew, losing her temper. 

“ Is that gracieusete for me 1 How much goodness ! This good 
Monsieur de Blackball is not very well-bred ; but, for an Englishman, 


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he is not too bad. I have met with people who are more ill-bred 
than Englishmen in my travels.” 

“And they are?” said Lady Ann, who had been in vain en- 
deavouring to put an end to this colloquy. 

“ Englishwomen, madam ! I speak not for you. You are 
kind ; you — you are too soft, dear Lady Ann, for a persecutor.” 

The counsels of the worldly woman who governed and directed 
that branch of the Newcome family of whom it is our business to 
speak now for a little while, bore other results than those which the 
elderly lady desired and foresaw. Who can foresee everything and 
always ? Not the wisest among us. When his Majesty Louis XIY. 
jockeyed his grandson on to the throne of Spain (founding thereby 
the present revered dynasty of that country), did he expect to peril 
his own, and bring all Europe about his royal ears ? Could a late 
King of France, eager for the advantageous establishment of one 
of his darling sons, and anxious to procure a beautiful Spanish 
princess, with a crown and kingdom in reversion, for the simple and 
obedient youth, ever suppose that the welfare of his whole august 
race and reign would be upset by that smart speculation ? We take 
only the most noble examples to illustrate the conduct of such a 
noble old personage as her Ladyship of Kew, who brought a pro- 
digious deal of trouble upon some of the innocent members of her 
family, whom, no doubt, she thought to better in life by her ex- 
perienced guidance and undoubted worldly wisdom. We may be as 
deep as Jesuits, know the world ever so well, lay the best ordered 
plans and the profoundest combinations, and, by a certain not un- 
natural turn of fate, we, and our plans and combinations, are sent 
flying before the wind. We may be as wise as Louis Philippe, that 
many-counselled Ulysses whom the respectable world admired so ; 
and after years of patient scheming, and prodigies of skill, after 
coaxing, wheedling, doubling, bullying, wisdom, behold yet stronger 
powers interpose — and schemes and skill and violence are nought. 

Frank and Ethel, Lady Kew’s grandchildren, were both the 
obedient subjects of this ancient despot ; this imperious old 
Louis XIV. in a black front and a cap and riband, this scheming 
old Louis Philippe in tabinet ; but their blood was good and their 
tempers high ; and for all her bitting and driving, and the training 
of her manege, the generous young colts were hard to break. Ethel, 
at this time, was especially stubborn in training, rebellious to the 
whip, and wild under harness ; and the way in which Lady Kew 
managed her won the admiration of her family : for it was a maxim 
among these folks that no one could manage Ethel but Lady Kew. 
Barnes said no one could manage his sister but his grandmother. 
He couldn’t, that was certain. Mamma never tried, and indeed, 


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345 


was so good-natured, that rather than ride the filly, she would put 
the saddle on her own back and let the filly ride her ; no, there 
was no one but her Ladyship capable of managing that girl, Barnes 
owned, who held Lady Kew in much respect and awe. “ If the 
tightest hand were not kept on her, there’s no knowing what she 
mightn’t do,” said her brother. “Ethel Newcome, by Jove, is 
capable of running away with the writing-master.” 

After poor Jack Belsize’s mishap and departure, Barnes’s own 
bride showed no spirit at all, save one of placid contentment. She 
came at call and instantly, and went through whatever paces her 
owner demanded of her. She laughed whenever need was, simpered 
and smiled when spoken to, danced whenever she was asked ; drove 
out at Barnes’s side in Kew’s phaeton, and received him certainly 
not with warmth, but with politeness and welcome. It is difficult 
to describe the scorn with which her sister-in-law regarded her. The 
sight of the patient timid little thing chafed Ethel, who was always 
more haughty and flighty and bold when in Clara’s presence than 
at any other time. Her Ladyship’s brother, Captain Lord Viscount 
Rooster, before mentioned, joined the family party at this interesting 
juncture. My Lord Rooster found himself surprised, delighted, 
subjugated by Miss Newcome, her wit and spirit. “ By Jove, she 
is a plucky one ! ” his Lordship exclaimed. “ To dance with her 

is the' best fun in life. How she pulls all the other girls to pieces, 

by Jove, and how splendidly she chaffs everybody ! But,” he added 
with the shrewdness and sense of humour which distinguished the 
young officer, “ I’d rather dance with her than marry her — by a 
doosid long score — I don’t envy you that part of the business, Kew, 
my boy.” Lord Kew did not set himself up as a person to be 
envied. He thought his cousin beautiful : and with his grand- 
mother, that she would make a very handsome countess, and he 
thought the money which Lady Kew would give or leave to the 
young couple a very welcome addition to his means. 

On the next night, when there was a ball at the room, Miss 

Ethel, who was ordinarily exceedingly simple in her attire, and 

dressed below the mark of the rest of the world, chose to appear 
in a toilette the very grandest and finest which she had ever 
assumed. Her clustering ringlets, her shining white shoulders, her 
splendid raiment (I believe, indeed, it was her Court dress which 
the young lady assumed) astonished all beholders. She Jcms^’d all 
other beauties by her appearance ; so much so that Madam d’lvry’s 
court could not but look, the men in admiration, the women in 
dislike, at this dazzling young creature. None of the countesses, 
duchesses, princesses, Russ, Spanish, Italian, were so fine or so 
handsome. There were some New York ladies at Baden, as there 


346 


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are everywhere else in Europe now. Not even these were more 
magnificent than Miss Ethel. General Jeremiah J. Bung’s lady 
owned that Miss Newcome was fit to appear in any party in Fifth 
Avenue. She was the only well-dressed English girl Mrs. Bung 
had seen in Europe. A young German Durchlaucht deigned to 
explain to his aide-de-camp how very handsome he thought Miss 
Newcome. All our acquaintances were of one mind. Mr. Jones of 
England pronounced her stunning ; the admirable Captain Backball 
examined her points with the skill of an amateur, and described 
them with agreeable frankness. Lord Rooster was charmed as he 
surveyed her, and complimented his late companion-in-arms on the 
possession of such a paragon. Only Lord Kew was not delighted — 
nor did Miss Ethel mean that he should be. She looked as splendid 
as Cinderella in the prince’s palace. But what need for all this 
splendour ? this wonderful toilette % this dazzling neck and shoulders, 
whereof the brightness and beauty blinded the eyes of lookers-on 1 
She was dressed as gaudily as an actress of the Varies going to a 
supper at the “ Trois Fibres.” “ It was Mademoiselle Mabille en 
habit de cour,” Madame d’lvry remarked to Madame Schlangenbad. 
Barnes, who, with his bride-elect for a partner, made a vis-a-vis for 
his sister and the admiring Lord Rooster, was puzzled likewise by 
Ethel’s countenance and appearance. Little Lady Clara looked like 
a little schoolgirl dancing before her. 

One, two, three of the attendants of her Majesty the Queen of 
Scots were carried off in the course of the evening by the victorious 
young beauty, whose triumph had the effect which the headstrong 
girl perhaps herself anticipated, of mortifying the Duchesse d’lvry, 
of exasperating old Lady Kew, and of annoying the young nobleman 
to whom Miss Ethel was engaged. The girl seemed to take a 
pleasure in defying all three ; a something embittered her alike 
against her friends and her enemies. The old dowager chafed and 
vented her wrath upon Lady Ann and Barnes. Ethel kept the 
ball alive by herself almost. She refused to go home, declining 
hints and commands alike. She was engaged for ever so many 
dances more. Not dance with Count Punter 1 it would be rude to 
leave him after promising him. Not waltz Avith Captain Blackball 1 
He was not a proper partner for her. Why then did Kew know 
him 1 Lord Kew walked and talked with Captain Blackball every 
day. Was she to be so proud as not to know Lord Kew’s friends'? 
She greeted the Captain Avith a most fascinating smile as he came 
up whilst the controversy was pending, and ended it by whirling 
round the room in his arms. 

Madame d’lvry viewed with such pleasure as might be expected 
the defection of her adherents, and the triumph of her youthful 


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347 


rival, who seemed to grow more beautiful with each waltz, so that 
the other dancers paused to look at her, the men breaking out in 
enthusiasm, the reluctant women being forced to join in the 
applause. Angry as she was, and knowing how Ethel’s conduct 
angered her grandson, old Lady Kew could not help admiring the 
rebellious beauty, whose girlish spirit was more than a match for 
the imperious dowager’s tough old resolution. As for Mr. Barnes’s 
displeasure, the girl tossed her saucy head, shrugged her fair 
shoulders, and passed on with a scornful laugh. In a word, Miss 
Ethel conducted herself as a most reckless and intrepid young flirt, 
using her eyes with the most consummate effect, chattering with 
astounding gaiety, prodigal of smiles, gracious thanks, and killing 
glances. What wicked spirit moved her f Perhaps had she known 
the mischief she was doing, she would have continued it still. 

The sight of this wilfulness and levity smote poor Lord Kew’s 
heart with cruel pangs of mortification. The easy young nobleman 
had passed many a year of his life in all sorts of wild company. 
The Chaumikre knew him, and the balls of Parisian actresses, the 
coulisses of the opera at home and abroad. Those pretty heads of 
ladies whom nobody knows used to nod their shining ringlets at 
Kew, from private boxes at theatres, or dubious park broughams. 
He had run the career of young men of pleasure, and laughed and 
feasted with jolly prodigals and their company. He was tired of 
it : perhaps he remembered an earlier and purer life, and was sigh- 
ing to return to it. Living as he had done amongst the outcasts, 
his ideal of domestic virtue was high and pure. He chose to believe 
that good women were entirely good. Duplicity he could not 
understand : ill-temper shocked him : wilfulness he seemed to fancy 
belonged only to the profane and wicked, not to good girls, with 
good mothers, in honest homes. Their nature was to love their 
families ; to obey their parents ; to tend their poor ; to honour 
their husbands ; to cherish their children. Ethel’s laugh woke him 
up from one of these simple reveries very likely, and then she swept 
round the ball-room rapidly to the brazen notes of the orchestra. 
He never offered to dance with her more than once in the evening ; 
went away to play, and returned to find her still whirling to the 
music. Madame d’lvry remarked his tribulation and gloomy face, 
though she took no pleasure at his discomfiture, knowing that 
Ethel’s behaviour caused it. 

In plays and novels, and I dare say in real life too sometimes, 
when the wanton heroine chooses to exert her powers of fascination, 
and to flirt with Sir Harry or the Captain, the hero, in a pique, 
goes off and makes love to somebody else : both acknowledge their 
folly after a while, shake hands and are reconciled, and the curtain 


348 


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drops, or the volume ends. But there are some people too noble 
and simple for these amorous scenes and smirking artifices. When 
Kew was pleased he laughed, when he was grieved he was silent. 
He did not deign to hide his grief or pleasure under disguises. His 
error, perhaps, was in forgettiug that Ethel was very young ; that 
her conduct was not design so much as girlish mischief and high 
spirits ; and that if young men have their frolics, sow their wild 
oats, and enjoy their pleasure, young women may be permitted 
sometimes their more harmless vagaries of gaiety, and sportive 
outbreaks of wilful humour. 

When she consented to go home at length, Lord Kew brought 
Miss Newcome’s little white cloak for her (under the hood of 
which her glossy curls, her blushing cheeks, and bright eyes looked 
provokingly handsome), and encased her in this pretty garment 
without uttering one single word. She made him a saucy curtsey 
in return for this act of politeness, which salutation he received 
with a grave bow; and then he proceeded to cover up old Lady 
Kew, and to conduct her Ladyship to her chariot. Miss Ethel 
chose to be displeased at her cousin’s displeasure. What were 
balls made for but that people should dance 1 She a flirt % She 
displease Lord Kew 1 If she chose to dance, she would dance ; 
she had no idea of his giving himself airs, besides it was such 
fun taking away the gentlemen of Mary, Queen of Scots’ court 
from her : such capital fun ! So she went to bed, singing and 
performing wonderful roulades as she lighted her candle and retired 
to her room. She had had such a jolly evening ! such famous 
fun, and, I dare say (but how shall a novelist penetrate these 
mysteries'?), when her chamber door was closed, she scolded her 
maid, and was as cross as two sticks. You see there come moments 
of sorrow after the most brilliant victories ; and you conquer 
and rout the enemy utterly, and then regret that you fought. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE END OF THE CONGRESS OF BADEN 

M ENTION has been made of an elderly young person from 
Ireland, engaged by Madame la Duchesse dTvry as com- 
panion and teacher of English for her little daughter. 
When Miss O’Grady, as she did some time afterwards, quitted 
Madame d’lvry’s family, she spoke with great freedom regarding 
the behaviour of that duchess, and recounted horrors which she, 
the latter, had committed. A number of the most terrific anec- 
dotes issued from the lips of the indignant miss, whose volubility 
Lord Kew was obliged to check, not choosing that his countess, 
with whom he was paying a bridal visit to Paris, should hear 
such dreadful legends. It was there that Miss O’Grady, finding 
herself in misfortune, and reading of Lord Kew’s arrival at the 
“ Hotel Bristol,” waited upon his Lordship and the Countess of 
Kew, begging them to take tickets in a raffle for an invaluable 
ivory writing-desk, sole relic of her former prosperity, which she 
proposed to give her friends the chance of acquiring : in fact, 
Miss O’Grady lived for some years on the produce of repeated 
raffles for this beautiful desk ; many religious ladies of the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain taking an interest in her misfortunes, and 
alleviating them by the simple lottery system. Protestants as 
well as Catholics w T ere permitted to take shares in Miss O’Grady’s 
raffles; and Lord Kew, good-natured then as always, purchased 
so many tickets, that the contrite O’Grady informed him of a 
transaction which had nearly affected his happiness, and in which 
she took a not very creditable share. “ Had I known your Lord- 
ship’s real character,” Miss O’G. was pleased to say, “no tortures 
would have induced me to do an act for which I have undergone 
penance. It was that black-hearted woman, my Lord, who 
maligned your Lordship to me : that woman whom I called friend 
once, but who is the most false, depraved, and dangerous of her 
sex.” In this way do ladies’ companions sometimes speak of 
ladies when quarrels separate them, when confidential attendants 
are dismissed, bearing away family secrets in their minds and 
revenge in their hearts. 


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The day after Miss Ethel’s feats at the assembly, old Lady 
Kew went over to advise her granddaughter, and to give her a 
little timely warning about the impropriety of flirtations ; above 
all, with such men as are to be found at watering-places, persons 
who are never seen elsewhere in society. “ Remark the peculiarities 
of Kew’s temper, who never flies into a passion like you and me, 
my dear,” said the old lady (being determined to be particularly 
gracious and cautious); “when once angry he remains so, and is 
so obstinate that it is almost impossible to coax him into good- 
humour. It is much better, my love, to be like us,” continued 
the old lady, “to fly out in a rage and have it over ; but que 
voulez-vous ? such is Frank’s temper, and we must manage him.” 
So she went on, backing her advice by a crowd of examples drawn 
from the family history ; showing how Kew was like his grand- 
father, her own poor husband; still more like his late father, Lord 
Walham, between whom and his mother there had been differences, 
chiefly brought on by my Lady Walham of course, which had 
ended in the almost total estrangement of mother and son. Lady 
Kew then administered her advice, and told her stories with Ethel 
alone for a listener ; and, in a most edifying manner, she besought 
Miss Newcome to menager Lord Kew’s susceptibilities as she valued 
her own future comfort in life, as well as the happiness of a most 
amiable man, of whom, if properly managed, Ethel might make 
what she pleased. We have said Lady Kew managed everybody, 
and that most of the members of her family allowed themselves to 
be managed by her Ladyship. 

Ethel, who had permitted her grandmother to continue her 
sententious advice while she herself sat tapping her feet on the 
floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which 
is called the Devil’s Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady’s 
surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a 
voice quivering with anger. 

“ This most amiable man,” she cried out, “ that you design for 
me ; I know everything about this most amiable man, and thank 
you and my family for the present you make me ! For the past 
year, what have you been doing 1 Every one of you ! my father, 
my brother, and you yourself, have been filling my ears with cruel 
reports against a poor boy, whom you chose to depict as everything 
that was dissolute and wicked, when there was nothing against 
him ; nothing, but. that he was poor. Yes, you yourself, grand- 
mamma, have told me many and many a time, that Clive Newcome 
was not a fit companion for us ; warned me against his bad courses, 
and painted him as extravagant, unprincipled, I don’t know how 
bad. How bad ! I don’t know how good he is ; how upright, 


THE NEWCOMES 


35 1 


generous, and truth-telling : though there was not a day until lately 
that Barnes did not make some wicked story against him, — Barnes, 
who, I believe, is bad himself, like — like other young men. Yes, 
I am sure there was something about Barnes in that newspaper 
which my father took away from me. And you come and you 
lift up your hands and shake your head, because I dance with one 
gentleman or another. You tell me I am wrong ; mamma has told 
me so this morning. Barnes, of course, has told me so, and you 
bring me Frank as a pattern, and tell me to love and honour and 
obey him ! Look here,” and she drew out a paper and put it 
into Lady Kew’s hands. “ Here is Kew’s history, and I believe it 
is true ; yes, I am sure it is true.” 

The old dowager lifted her eyeglass to her black eyebrow, and 
read a paper written in English, and bearing no signature, in which 
many circumstances of Lord Kew’s life were narrated for poor 
Ethel’s benefit. It was not a worse life than that of a thousand 
young men of pleasure, but there were Kew’s many misdeeds set 
down in order : such a catalogue as we laugh at when Leporello 
trolls it, and sings his master’s victories in France, Italy, and Spain. 
Madame d’lvry’s name was not mentioned in this list, and Lady 
Kew felt sure that the outrage came from her. 

With real ardour Lady Kew sought to defend her grandson 
from some of the attacks here made against him ; and showed 
Ethel that the person who could use such means of calumniating 
him would not scruple to resort to falsehood in order to effect her 
purpose. 

“Her purpose!” cries Ethel. “How do you know it is a 
woman ^ ” Lady Kew lapsed into generalities. She thought the 
handwriting was a woman’s — at least it was not likely that a man 
should think of addressing an anonymous letter to a young lady, 
and so wreaking his hatred upon Lord Kew. “ Besides, Frank has 
had no rivals — except — except one young gentleman who has carried 
his paint-boxes to Italy,” says Lady Kew. “You don’t think your 
dear Colonel’s son would leave such a piece of mischief behind him ? 
You must act, my dear,” continued her Ladyship, “as if this letter 
had never been written at all : the person who wrote it no doubt 
will watch you. Of course we are too proud to allow him to see 
that we are wounded ; and pray, pray do not think of letting poor 
Frank know a word about this horrid transaction.” 

“Then the letter is true!” burst out Ethel. “You know it 
is true, grandmamma, and that is why you would have me keep 
it a secret from my cousin ; besides,” she added with a little 
hesitation, “your caution comes too late; Lord Kew has seen 
the letter.” 


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“ You fool ! ” screamed the old lady, “ you were not so mad as 
to show it to him 1 ” 

“I am sure the letter is true,” Ethel said, rising up very 
haughtily. “It is not by calling me bad names that your Lady- 
ship will disprove it. Keep them, if you please, for my Aunt Julia, 
she is sick and weak, and can’t defend herself. I do not choose to 
bear abuse from you, or lectures from Lord Kew. He happened to 
be here a short while since, when the letter arrived. He had been 
good enough to come to preach me a sermon on his own account. 
He to find fault with my actions ! ” cried Miss Ethel, quivering 
with wrath and clenching the luckless paper in her hand. “He to 
accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making improper ac- 
quaintances ! He began his lectures too soon. I am not a lawful 
slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as I 
am free.” 

“ And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcome, and you showed 
him that letter ? ” said the old lady. 

“ The letter was actually brought to me whilst his Lordship 
was in the midst of his sermon,” Ethel replied. “ I read it as he 
was making his speech,” she continued, gathering anger and scorn 
as she recalled the circumstances of the interview. “ He was per- 
fectly polite in his language. He did not call me a fool or use a 
single other bad name. He was good enough to advise me and to 
make such virtuous pretty speeches, that if he had been a bishop 
he could not have spoken better ; and as I thought the letter was 
a nice commentary on his Lordship’s sermon, I gave it to him. 
I gave it to him,” cried the young woman, “and much good may it 
do him. I don’t think my Lord Kew will preach to me again for 
some time.” 

“ I don’t think he will indeed,” said Lady Kew, in a hard dry 
voice. “You don’t know what you may have done. Will you be 
pleased to ring the bell and order my carriage ? I congratulate you 
on having performed a most charming morning’s work.” 

Ethel made her grandmother a very stately curtsey. I pity 
Lady Julia’s condition when her mother reached home. 

All who know Lord Kew may be pretty sure that in that un- 
lucky interview with Ethel, to which the young lady had just 
alluded, he said no single word to her that was not kind, and just, 
and gentle. Considering the relation between them, he thought 
himself justified in remonstrating with her as to the conduct which 
she chose to pursue, and in warning her against acquaintances of 
whom his own experience had taught him the dangerous character. 
He knew Madame d’lvry and her friends so well that he would not 
have his wife elect a member of their circle. He could not tell 


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353 


Ethel what he knew of those women and their history. She chose 
not to understand his hints — did not, very likely, comprehend them. 
She was quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had 
never been told before her. She was indignant at the surveillance 
which Lord Kew exerted over her, and the authority which he began 
to assume. At another moment and in a better frame of mind she 
would have been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after 
she did justice to his many admirable qualities — his frankness, 
honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual 
revolt at this time against the bondage in which her family strove 
to keep her. The very worldly advantages of the position which 
they offered her served but to chafe her the more. Had her pro- 
posed husband been a young prince with a crown to lay at her feet, 
she had been yet more indignant very likely, and more rebellious. 
Had Kew’s younger brother been her suitor, or Kew in his place, she 
had been not unwilling to follow her parents’ wishes. Hence the 
revolt in which she was engaged — the wayward freaks and out- 
breaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the 
justice of Lord Kew’s reproofs. That self-consciousness was not 
likely to add to her good-humour. No doubt she was sorry for 
having shown Lord Kew the letter the moment after she had done 
that act, of which the poor young lady could not calculate the con- 
sequences that were now to ensue. 

Lord Kew, on glancing over the letter, at once divined the 
quarter whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, 
as our characters, described by those who hate us, are not unlike. 
He had passed a reckless youth, indeed he was sad and ashamed of 
that past life, longed like the poor prodigal to return to better 
courses, and had embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a 
union with a woman young, virtuous, and beautiful, against whom 
and against Heaven he hoped to sin no more. If we have told or 
hinted at more of his story than will please the ear of modern con- 
ventionalism, I beseech the reader to believe that the writer’s 
purpose at least is not dishonest, nor unkindly. The young gentle- 
man hung his head with sorrow over that sad detail of his life and 
its follies. What would he have given to be able to say to Ethel, 
“ This is not true ” ! 

His reproaches to Miss Newcome of course were at once stopped 
by this terrible assault on himself. The letter had been put in the 
Baden post-box, and so had come to its destination. It was in a 
disguised handwriting. Lord Kew could form no idea even of the 
sex of the scribe. He put the envelope in his pocket, when Ethel’s 
back was turned. He examined the paper when he left her. He 
could make little of the superscription or of the wafer which had 
8 Z 


354 


THE NEWCOMES 


served to close the note. He did not choose to caution Ethel as to 
whether she should burn the letter or divulge it to her friends. He 
took his share of the pain, as a boy at school takes his flogging, 
stoutly and in silence. 

When he saw Ethel again, which he did in an hour’s time, the 
generous young gentleman held his hand out to her. “My dear,” 
he said, “if you had loved me you never would have shown me that 
letter.” It was his only reproof. After that he never again reproved 
or advised her. 

Ethel blushed. “You are very brave and generous, Frank,” 
she said, bending her head, “and I am captious and wicked.” He 
felt the hot tear blotting on his hand from his cousin’s downcast 
eyes. 

He kissed her little hand. Lady Ann — who was in the room 
with her children when these few words passed between the two in 
a very low tone — thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it 
was a renunciation on Kew’s part — she never liked him so much as 
at that moment. The young man was too modest and simple to 
guess himself what the girl’s feelings were. Could he have told 
them, his fate and hers might have been changed. 

“ You must not allow our kind letter-writing friend,” Lord Kew 
continued, “to fancy we are hurt. We must walk out this after- 
noon, and we must appear very good friends.” 

“ Yes, always, Kew,” said Ethel, holding out her hand again. 
The next minute her cousin was at the table carving roast fowls and 
distributing the portions to the hungry children. 

The assembly of the previous evening had been one of those 
which the fermier des jeux at Baden beneficently provides for the 
frequenters of the place, and now was to come off a much more 
brilliant entertainment, in which poor Clive, who is far into Switzer- 
land by this time, was to have taken a share. The Bachelors had 
agreed to give a ball, one of the last entertainments of the season, a 
a dozen or more of them had subscribed the funds, and we may be 
sure Lord Kew’s name was at the head of the list, as it was of any 
list, of any scheme, whether of charity or fan. The English were 
invited, and the Russians were invited ; the Spaniards and Italians, 
Poles, Prussians, and Hebrews ; all the motley frequenters of the 
place, and the warriors in the Duke of Baden’s army. Unlimited 
supper was set in the restaurant. The dancing-room glittered with 
extra lights, and a profusion of cut-paper flowers decorated the 
festive scene. Everybody was present : those crowds with whom 
our story has nothing to do, and those two or three groups of 
persons who enact minor or greater parts in it. Madame d’lvry 
came in a dress of stupendous splendour, even more brilliant than 


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355 


that in which Miss Ethel had figured at the last assembly. If the 
Duchess intended to ecraser Miss Newcome by the superior magni- 
ficence of her toilette, she was disappointed. Miss Newcome wore a 
plain white frock on the occasion, and resumed, Madame d’lvry 
said, her role of ingenue for that night. 

During the brief season in which gentlemen enjoyed the favour 
of Mary, Queen of Scots, that wandering sovereign led them through 
all the paces and vagaries of a regular passion. As in a fair, where 
time is short and pleasures numerous, the master of the theatrical 
booth shows you a tragedy, a farce, and a pantomime, all in a 
quarter of an hour, having a dozen new audiences to witness his 
entertainments in the course of the forenoon ; so this lady with her 
platonic lovers went through the complete dramatic course, — 
tragedies of jealousy, pantomimes of rapture, and farces of parting. 
There were billets on one side and the other; hints of a fatal 
destiny, and a ruthless lynx-eyed tyrant, who held a demoniac grasp 
over the Duchess by means of certain secrets which he knew ; there 
were regrets that we had not known each other sooner ; why were 
we brought out of our convent and sacrificed to Monsieur le Due ? 
There were frolic interchanges of fancy and poesy : pretty bouderies ; 
sweet reconciliations ; yawns finally — and separation. Adolphe 
went out and Alphonse came in. It was the new audience; for 
which the bell rang, the band played, and the curtain rose ; and the 
tragedy, comedy, and farce were repeated. 

Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces 
above mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary 
tragedians ; and if they have to denounce a villain, to declare a 
passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their 
fists, and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the 
play has surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la 
Duchesse d’lvry perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines’ parts ; 
liking to strike her audiences quickly, and also to change them 
often. Like good performers, she flung herself heart and soul into 
the business of the stage, and was what she acted. She was 
PhMre, and if, in the first part of the play, she was uncommonly 
tender to Hippolyte, in the second she hated him furiously. She 
was Medea, and if Jason was volage, woe to Creusa ! Perhaps our 
poor Lord Kew had taken the first character in a performance 
with Madame d’lvry; for his behaviour in which part it was 
difficult enough to forgive him ; but when he appeared at Baden 
the affianced husband of one of the most beautiful young creatures 
in Europe, — when his relatives scorned Madame d’lvry, — no wonder 
she was maddened and enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, 
steel, poison. 


356 


THE NEWCOMES 


There was in the Duchess’s Court a young fellow from the 
South of France, whose friends had sent him to faire son droit at 
Paris, where he had gone through the usual course of pleasures and 
studies of the young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter, He had at 
one time exalted republican opinions, and had fired his shot with 
distinction at St. Mdri. He was a poet of some little note — a book 
of his lyrics, “Les Rales d’un Asphyxia,” having made a sensation 
at the time of their appearance. He drank great quantities of 
absinthe of a morning, smoked incessantly, played roulette when- 
ever he could get a few pieces, contributed to a small journal, and 
was especially great in his hatred of Vinfdme Angleterre. Delenda 
est Carthago was tattooed beneath his shirt sleeve. Fifine and 
Clarisse, young milliners of the students’ district, had punctured 
this terrible motto on his manly right arm. Le leopard , emblem 
of England, was his aversion; he shook his fist at the caged 
monster in the Garden of Plants. He desired to have “Here lies 
an enemy of England” engraved upon his early tomb. He was 
skilled at billiards and dominoes, adroit in the use of arms, of 
unquestionable courage and fierceness. Mr. Jones of England was 
afraid of M. de Castillonnes, and cowered before his scowls and 
sarcasms. Captain Blackball, the other English aide-de-camp of 
the Duchesse d’lvry, a warrior of undoubted courage, who had been 
“on the ground” more than once, gave him a wide berth, and 
wondered what the little beggar meant when he used to say, “ Since 
the days of the Prince Noir, monsieur, my family has been at feud 
with l’Angleterre ! ” His family were grocers at Bordeaux, and his 
father’s name was M. Cabasse. Cabasse had married a noble in the 
revolutionary times ; and the son at Paris called himself Victor 
Cabasse de Castillonnes ; then Victor C. de Castillonnes ; then 
M. de Castillonnes. One of the followers of the Black Prince had 
insulted a lady of the house of Castillonnes when the English were 
lords of Guienne : hence our friend’s wrath against the Leopard. 
He had written, and afterwards dramatised, a terrific legend de- 
scribing the circumstances, and the punishment of the Briton by a 
knight of the Castillonnes family. A more awful coward never 
existed in a melodrama than that felon English knight. His blanche 
fille , of course, died of hopeless love for the conquering Frenchman, 
her father’s murderer. The paper in which the feuilleton appeared 
died at the sixth number of the story. The theatre of the Boulevard 
refused the drama; so the author’s rage against Vinfdme Albion 
was yet unappeased. On beholding Miss Newcome, Victor had 
fancied a resemblance between her and Agnes de Calverley, the 
blanche miss of his novel and drama, and cast an eye of favour 
upon the young creature. He even composed verses in her honour 


THE NEWCOMES 


357 


(for I presume that the “ Miss Betti ” and the Princess Crimhilde 
of the poems which he subsequently published were no other than 
Miss Newcome, and the Duchess, her rival). He had been one of 
the lucky gentlemen who had danced with Ethel on the previous 
evening. On the occasion of the ball he came to her with a high- 
flown compliment, and a request to be once more allowed to waltz 
with her — a request to which he expected a favourable answer, 
thinking, no doubt, that his wit, his powers of conversation, and 
the amour qui Jlambait dans son regard , had had their effect upon 
the charming meess. Perhaps he had a copy of the very verses in 
his breast-pocket, with which he intended to complete his work of 
fascination. For her sake alone, he had been heard to say that he 
would enter into a truce with England, and forget the hereditary 
wrongs of his race. 

But the blanche miss on this evening declined to waltz with 
him. His compliments were not of the least avail. He retired 
with them and his unuttered verses in his crumpled bosom. Miss 
Newcome only danced in one quadrille with Lord Kew, and left 
the party quite early, to the despair of many of the bachelors, who 
lost the fairest ornament of their ball. 

Lord Kew, however, had been seen walking with her in public, 
and particularly attentive to her during her brief appearance in the 
ball-room ; and the old Dowager, who regularly attended all places 
of amusement, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week 
before she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame 
d’lvry upon this evening, and, far from shunning the Duchesse’s 
presence or being rude to her, as on former occasions, was entirely 
smiling and good-humoured. Lady Kew, too, thought there had 
been a reconciliation between Ethel and her cousin. Lady Ann 
had given her mother some account of the handshaking. Kew’s 
walk with Ethel, the quadrille which she had danced with him 
alone, induced the elder lady to believe that matters had been made 
up between the young people. 

So, by way of showing the Duchesse that her little shot of the 
morning had failed in its effect, as Frank left the room with his 
cousin, Lady Kew gaily hinted “ that the young earl was aux petits 
soins with Miss Ethel ; that she was sure her old friend, the Due 
d’lvry, would be glad to hear that his godson was about to range 
himself. He would settle down on his estates. He would attend to 
his duties as an English peer and a country gentleman. We shall 
go home,” says the benevolent Countess, “ and kill the veau gras, and 
you shall see our dear prodigal will become a very quiet gentleman.” 

The Duchesse said “my Lady Kew’s plan was most edifying. 
She was charmed to hear that Lord Kew loved veal ; there were 


358 


THE NEWCOMES 


some who thought that meat rather insipid.” A waltzer came to 
claim her hand at this moment ; and as she twirled round the room 
upon that gentleman’s arm, wafting odours as she moved, her pink 
silks, pink feathers, pink ribands, making a mighty rustling, the 
Countess of Kew had the satisfaction of thinking that she had 
planted an arrow in that shrivelled little waist which Count Punter’s 
arms embraced, and had returned the stab which Madame d’lvry 
had delivered in the morning. 

Mr. Barnes, and his elect bride, had also appeared, danced, and 
disappeared. Lady Kew soon followed her young ones ; and the 
ball went on very gaily, in spite of the absence of these respectable 
personages. 

Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Kew 
returned to it after conducting Lady Ann and her daughter to their 
carriage, and now danced with great vigour, and with his usual 
kindness, selecting those ladies whom other waltzers rejected because 
they were too old, or too plain, or too stout, or what not. But he 
did not ask Madame d’lvry to dance. He could condescend to 
dissemble so far as to hide the pain which he felt ; but did not 
care to engage in that more advanced hypocrisy of friendship, 
which, for her part, his old grandmother had not shown the least 
scruple in assuming. 

Amongst other partners, my Lord selected that intrepid waltzer, 
the Grafinn von Gumpelheim, who, in spite of her age, size, and 
large family, never lost a chance of enjoying her favourite recreation. 
“Look with what a camel my Lord waltzes,” said M. Victor to 
Madame d’lvry, whose slim waist he had the honour of embracing 
to the same music. “ What man but an Englishman would ever 
select such a dromedary ? ” 

“ Avant de se marier,” said Madame d’lvry, “ il faut avouer 
que my Lord se permet d’dnormes distractions.” 

“My Lord marries himself? And when and whom?” cries the 
Ducliesse’s partner. 

“Miss Newcome. Do you not approve of his choice? I 
thought the eyes of Stenio (the Duchesse called M. Victor, Stenio) 
looked with some favour upon that little person. She is handsome, 
even very handsome. Is it not so often in life, Stenio ? Are not 
youth and innocence (I give Miss Ethel the compliment of her 
innocence, now surtout that the little painter is dismissed) — are 
we not cast into the arms of jaded rou& ? Tender young flowers, 
are we not torn from our convent gardens, and flung into a world 
of which the air poisons our pure life, and withers the sainted 
buds of hope and love and faith ? Faith ! The mocking world 
tramples on it, n’est-ce-pas ? Love ! The brutal world strangles 


THE NEWCOMES 


359 


the heaven-born infant at its birth. Hope ! It smiled at me in 
my little convent chamber, played among the flowers which I 
cherished, warbled with the birds that I loved. But it quitted 
me at the door of the world, Stenio. It folded its white wings 
and veiled its radiant face ! In return for my young love, they 
gave me — sixty years, the dregs of a selfish heart, egotism cowering 
over its fire, and cold for all its mantle of ermine ! In place of 
the sweet flowers of my young years, they gave me these, Stenio ! ” 
and she pointed to her feathers and her artificial roses. “ Oh, I 
should like to crush them mider my feet ! ” and she put out the 
neatest little slipper. The Duchesse was great upon her wrongs, 
and paraded her blighted innocence to every one who would feel 
interested by that piteous spectacle. The music here burst out 
more swiftly and melodiously than before; the pretty little feet 
forgot their desire to trample upon the world. She shrugged the 
lean little shoulders — “ Eh ! ” said the Queen of Scots, “ dansons 
et oublions ; ” and Stenio’s arm once more surrounded her fairy 
waist (she called herself a fairy ; other ladies called her a skeleton) ; 
and they whirled away in the waltz again : and presently she and 
Stenio came bumping up against the stalwart Lord Kew and the 
ponderous Madame de Gumpelheim, as a wherry dashes against 
the oaken ribs of a steamer. 

The little couple did not fall ; they were struck on to a neigh- 
bouring bench, luckily : but there was a laugh at the expense of 
Stenio and the Queen of Scots — and Lord Kew, settling his panting 
partner on to a seat, came up to make excuses for his awkwardness 
to the lady who had been its victim. At the laugh produced by 
the catastrophe, the Duchesse’s eye gleamed with anger. 

“M. de Castillonnes,” she said to her partner, “have you had 
any quarrel with that Englishman 1 ” 

“With ce milor? But no,” said Stenio. 

“ He did it on purpose. There has been no day but his family 
has insulted me?” hissed out the Duchesse, and at this moment 
Lord Kew came up to make his apologies. He asked a thousand 
pardons of Madame la Duchesse for being so maladroit. 

“ Maladroit ! et trks maladroit, monsieur,” says Stenio, curling 
his moustache. “ C’est bien le mot, monsieur.” 

“ Also, I make my excuses to Madame la Duchesse, which I 
hope she will receive,” said Lord Kew. The Duchesse -shrugged 
her shoulders and sunk her head. 

“When one does not know how to dance, one ought not to 
dance,” continued the Duchesse’s knight. 

“Monsieur is very good to give me lessons in dancing,” said 
Lord Kew, 


360 


THE NEW COMES 


“Any lessons which you please, milor ! ” cries Stenio; “and 
everywhere where you will them.” 

Lord Kew looked at the little man with surprise. He could 
not understand so much anger for so trifling an accident, which 
happens a dozen times in every crowded ball. He again bowed to 
the Duchesse, and walked away. 

“ This is your Englishman — your Kew, whom you vaunt every- 
where,” said Stenio to M. de Florae, who was standing by and 
witnessed the scene. “ Is he simply bete, or is he poltron as well ? 
I believe him to be both.” 

“ Silence, Victor!” cried Florae, seizing his arm, and drawing him 
away. “You know me, and that I am neither one nor the other. 
Believe my word, that my Lord Kew wants neither courage nor wit ! ” 

“Will you be my witness, Florae?” continues the other. 

“To take him your excuses? yes. It is you who have in- 
sulted ” 

“Yes, parbleu, I have insulted ! ” says the Gascon. 

“ A man who never willingly offended soul alive. A man full of 
heart : the most frank : the most loyal. I have seen him put to 
the proof, and believe me he is all I say.” 

“ Eh ! so much the better for me ! ” cried the Southron. “ I 
shall have the honour of meeting a gallant man ; and there will be 
two on the field.” 

“ They are making a tool of you, my poor Gascon,” said M. de 
Florae, who saw Madame d’lvry’s eyes watching the couple. She 
presently took the arm of the noble Count de Punter, and went for 
fresh air into the adjoining apartment, where play was going on as 
usual ; and Lord Kew and his friend Lord Rooster were pacing the 
room apart from the gamblers. 

My Lord Rooster, at something which Kew said, looked puzzled, 
and said, “ Pooh, stuff, damned little Frenchman ! Confounded 
nonsense ! ” 

“ I was searching you, milor ! ” said Madame d’lvry, in a most 
winning tone, tripping behind him with her noiseless little feet. 
“ Allow me a little word. Your arm ! You used to give it me 
once, moil filleul ! I hope you think nothing of the rudeness of 
M. de Castillonnes ; he is a foolish Gascon ; he must have been too 
often to the buffet this evening.” 

Lord Kew said, No, indeed, he thought nothing of M. de 
Castillonnes’ rudeness. 

“ I am so glad ! These heroes of the salle d’armes have not 
the commonest manners. These Gascons are always flamberge au 
vent. What would the charming Miss Ethel say, if she heard of 
the dispute ? ” 


THE NEWCOMES 


361 


“ Indeed there is no reason why she should hear of it,” said 
Lord Kew, “unless some obliging friend should communicate it 
to her.” 

“ Communicate it to her — the poor dear ! who would be so 
cruel as to give her pain?” asked the innocent Duchesse. “Why 
do you look at me so, Frank ? ” 

“ Because I admire you,” said her interlocutor, with a bow. 
“ I have never seen Madame la Duchesse to such advantage as 
to-day.” 

“You speak in enigmas ! Come back with me to the ballroom. 
Come and dance with me once more. You used to dance with me. 
Let us have one waltz more, Kew. And then, and then, in a day 
or two I shall go back to Monsieur le Due, and tell him that his 
filleul is going to marry the fairest of all Englishwomen ; and to 
turn hermit in the country, and orator in the Chamber of Peers. 
You have wit ! ah si — you have wit ! ” And she led back Lord 
Kew, rather amazed himself at what he was doing, into the ball- 
room ; so that the good-natured people who were there, and who 
beheld them dancing, could not refrain from clapping their hands at 
the sight of this couple. 

The Duchess danced as if she was bitten by that Neapolitan 
spider which, according to the legend, is such a wonderful dance 
incentor. She would have the music quicker and quicker. She 
sank on Kew’s arm, and clung on his support. She poured out all 
the light of her languishing eyes into his face. Their glances rather 
confused than charmed him. But the bystanders were pleased ; 
they thought it so good-hearted of the Duchess, after the little 
quarrel, to make a public avowal of reconciliation ! 

Lord Rooster looking on, at the entrance of the dancing-room, 
over Monsieur de Florae’s shoulder, said, “ It’s all right ! She’s a 
clipper to dance, the little Duchess.” 

“ The viper ! ” said Florae, “ how she writhes ! ” 

“ I suppose that business with the Frenchman is all over,” says 
Lord Rooster. “ Confounded piece of nonsense ! ” 

“You believe it finished? We shall see!” said Florae, who 
perhaps knew his fair cousin better. When the waltz was over, 
Kew led his partner to a seat, and bowed to her; but though she 
made room for him at her side, pointing to it, and gathering up her 
rustling robes so that he might sit down, he moved away, his face 
full of gloom. He never wished to be near her again. There was 
something more odious to him in her friendship than her hatred. 
He knew hers was the hand that had dealt that stab at him 
and Ethel in the morning. He went back and talked with his 
two friends in the doorway. “ Couch yourself, my little Kiou,” 


362 THE NEWCOMES 

said Florae. “You are all pale. You were best in bed, mon 
gar^on ! ” 

“She has made me promise to take her in to supper,” Kew 
said, with a sigh. 

“ She will poison you,” said the other. “ Why have they 
abolished the roue chez nous'? My word of honour, they should 
re-establish it for this woman.” 

“ There is one in the next room,” said Kew, with a laugh. 
“ Come, Yicomte, let us try our fortune,” and he walked back into 
the play-room. 

That was the last night on which Lord Kew ever played a 
gambling game. He won constantly. The double zero seemed to 
obey him ; so that the croupiers wondered at his fortune. Florae 
backed it ; saying with the superstition of a gambler, “ I am sure 
something goes to arrive to this boy.” From time to time M. de 
Florae went back to the dancing-room, leaving his mise under Kew’s 
charge. He always found his heaps increased ; indeed the worthy 
Vicomte wanted a turn of luck in his favour. On one occasion he 
returned with a grave face, saying to Lord Rooster, “ She has the 
other one in hand. We are going to see.” “ Trente-six encore ! 
et rouge gagne,” cried the croupier with his nasal tone. Monsieur 
de Florae’s pockets overflowed with double napoleons, and he stopped 
his play, luckily, for Kew putting down his winnings, once, twice, 
thrice, lost them all. 

When Lord Kew had left the dancing-room, Madame d’lvry 
saw Stenio following him with fierce looks, and called back that 
bearded bard. “You were going to pursue M. de Kew,” she said ; 
“ I knew you were. Sit down here, sir,” and she patted him down 
on her seat with her fan. 

“ Do you wish that I should call him back, madame ? ” said the 
poet, with the deepest tragic accents. 

“ I can bring him when I want him, Victor,” said the lady. 

“ Let us hope others will be equally fortunate,” the Gascon said, 
with one hand in his breast, the other stroking his mustachio. 

“ Fi, monsieur, que vous sentez le tabac ! je vous le defends, 
entendez-vous, monsieur ? ” 

“Pourtant, I have seen the day when Madame la Duchesse 
did not disdain a cigar,” said Victor. “ If the odour incommodes, 
permit that I retire.” 

“ And you also would quit me, Stenio ? Do you think I did 
not mark your eyes towards Miss Newcome? your anger when 
she refused you to dance ? Ah ! we see all. A woman does 
not deceive herself, do you see? You send me beautiful verses, 
Poet. You can write as well of a statue or a picture, of a rose 


THE NEWCOMES 363 

or a sunset, as of the heart of a woman. You were angry just 
now because I danced with M. de Kew. Do you think in a 
woman’s eyes jealousy is unpardonable ? ” 

“You know how to provoke it, madame,” continued the 
tragedian. 

“Monsieur,” replied the lady, with dignity, “am I to render 
you an account of all my actions, and ask your permission for 
a walk ? ” 

“ In fact, I am but the slave, madame,” groaned the Gascon, 
“I am not the master.” 

“You are a very rebellious slave, monsieur,” continues the 
lady, with a pretty moue, and a glance of the large eyes artfully 
brightened by her rouge. “ Suppose — suppose I danced with M. 
de Kew, not for his sake — Heaven knows to dance with him is 
not a pleasure — but for yours. Suppose I do not want a foolish 
quarrel to proceed. Suppose I know that he is ni sot ni poltron, 
as you preteud. I overheard you, sir, talking with one of the 
basest of men, my good cousin, M. de Florae : but it is not 
of him I speak. Suppose I know the Comte de Kew to be 
a man, cold and insolent, ill-bred and grossier, as the men of 
his nation are — but one who lacks no courage — one who is 
terrible when roused ; might I have no occasion to fear, not for 
him, but ” 

“ But for me ! Ah, Marie ! Ah, madame ! Believe you 
that a man of my blood will yield a foot to any Englishman? 
Do you know the story of my race ? do you know that since my 
childhood I have vowed hatred to that nation ? Tenez, madame, 
this M. Jones who frequents your salon, it was but respect for 
you that has enabled me to keep my patience with this stupid 
islander. This Captain Blackball, whom you distinguish, who 
certainly shoots well, who mounts well to horse, I have always 
thought his manners were those of the marker of a billiard. But 
I respect him because he has made war with Don Carlos against 
the English. But this young M. de Kew, his laugh crisps me 
the nerves; his insolent air makes me bound; in beholding him 
I said to myself, I hate you ; think whether I love him better 
after having seen him as I did but now, madame ! ” Also, but 
this Victor did not say, he thought Kew had laughed at him at 
the beginning of the evening, when the blanche miss had refused 
to dance with him. 

“ Ah, Victor, it is not him, but you that I would save,” said 
the Duchess. And the people round about, and the Duchess her- 
self afterwards said, yes, certainly, she had a good heart. She 
entreated Lord Kew ; she implored M. Victor ; she did every- 


364 THE NEWCOMES 

thing in her power to appease the quarrel between him and the 
Frenchman. 

After the ball came the supper, which was laid at separate 
little tables, where parties of half-a-dozen enjoyed themselves. 
Lord Kew was of the Duchess’s party, where our Gascon friend had 
not a seat. But being one of the managers of the entertainment, 
his Lordship went about from table to table, seeing that the 
guests at each lacked nothing. He supposed, too, that the dis- 
pute with the Gascon had possibly come to an end ; at any rate, 
disagreeable as the other’s speech had been, he had resolved to 
put up with it, not having the least inclination to drink the 
Frenchman’s blood, or to part with his own on so absurd a 
quarrel. He asked people, in his good-natured way, to drink wine 
with him ; and catching M. Victor’s eye scowling at him from a 
distant table, he sent a waiter with a champagne bottle to his 
late opponent, and lifted his glass as a friendly challenge. The 
waiter carried the message to M. Victor, who when he heard it, 
turned up his glass, and folded his arms in a stately manner. 
“ M. de Castillonnes dit qu’il refuse, milor,” said the waiter, rather 
scared. “ He charged me to bring that message to milor.” Florae 
ran across to the angry Gascon. It was not while at Madame 
d’lvry’s table that Lord Kew sent his challenge and received his 
reply ; his duties as steward had carried him away from that 
pretty early. 

Meanwhile the glimmering dawn peered into the windows of 
the refreshment-room, and behold, the sun broke in and scared 
all the revellers. The ladies scurried away like so many ghosts 
at cock-crow, some of them not caring to face that detective 
luminary. Cigars had been lighted ere this; the men remained 
smoking them, with those sleepless German waiters still bringing 
fresh supplies of drink. Lord Kew gave the Duchesse d’lvry his 
arm, and was leading her out ; M. de Castillonnes stood scowling 
directly in their way, upon which, with rather an abrupt turn 
of the shoulder, and a “ Pardon, monsieur,” Lord Kew pushed by 
and conducted the Duchess to her carriage. She did not in the 
least see what had happened between the two gentlemen in the 
passage ; she ogled, and nodded, and kissed her hands quite affec- 
tionately to Kew as the fly drove away. 

Florae, in the meanwhile, had seized his compatriot, who had 
drunk champagne copiously with others, though not with Kew, and 
was in vain endeavouring to make him hear reason. The Gascon 
was furious ; he vowed that Lord Kew had struck him. “ By the 
tomb of my mother,” he bellowed, “I swear I will have his 
blood ! ” Lord Rooster was bawling out, “ D him, carry him 



THE EXPLOSION. 





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365 


to bed, and shut him up ; ” which remarks Victor did not under- 
stand, or two victims would doubtless have been sacrificed to his 
mamma’s mausoleum. 

When Kew came back (as he was only too sure to do), the 
little Gascon rushed forward with a glove in his hand, and having 
an audience of smokers round about him, made a furious speech 
about England, leopards, cowardice, insolent islanders, and Napoleon 
at St. Helena ; and demanded reason for Kew’s conduct during 
the night. As he spoke, he advanced towards Lord Kew, glove in 
hand, and lifted it as if he was actually going to strike. 

“ There is no need for further words,” said Lord Kew, taking 
his cigar out of his mouth. “ If you don’t drop that glove, upon 
my word I will pitch you out of the window. Ha ! . . . Pick 
the man up, somebody. You’ll bear witness, gentlemen, I couldn’t 
help myself. If he w r ants me in the morning, he knows where 
to find me.” 

“ I declare that my Lord Kew has acted with great forbearance, 
and under the most brutal provocation — the most brutal provoca- 
tion, entendez-vous, M. Cabasse,” cried out M. de Florae, rushing 
forward to the Gascon, who had now risen ; “ Monsieur’s conduct 
has been unworthy of a Frenchman and a galant homme.” 

“D it, he has had it on his nob, though,” said Lord 

Viscount Rooster laconically. 

“ Ah, Roosterre ! ceci n’est pas pour rire,” Florae cried sadly, 
as they both walked away with Lord Kew; “I wish that first 
blood was all that was to be shed in this quarrel.” 

“ Gaw ! how he did go down ! ” cried Rooster, convulsed with 
laughter. 

“I am very sorry for it,” said Kew, quite seriously ; “I couldn’t 
help it. God forgive me.” And he hung down his head. He 
thought of the past, and its levities, and punishment coming after 
him pede claudo. It was with all his heart the contrite young 
man said “ God forgive me.” He would take what was to follow 
as the penalty of what had gone before. 

“ ‘ Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat,’ mon pauvre Kiou,” 
said his French friend. And Lord Rooster, whose classical education 
had been much neglected, turned round and said, “Hullo, mate, 
what ship’s that ? ” 

Viscount Rooster had not been two hours in bed, when the 
Count de Punter (formerly of the Black Jagers) waited upon him 
upon the part of M. de Castillonnes and the Earl of Kew, who had 
referred him to the Viscount to arrange matters for a meeting 
between them. As the meeting must take place out of the Baden 
territory, and they ought to move before the police prevented them 


366 


THE NEWCOMES 


the Count proposed that they should at once make for France; 
where, as it was an affair of honour, they would assuredly be let 
to enter without passports. 

Lady Ann and Lady Kew heard that the gentlemen after the 
ball had all gone out on a hunting party, and were not alarmed for 
four-and-twenty hours at least. On the next day none of them 
returned ; and on the day after, the family heard that Lord Kew 
had met with rather a dangerous accident ; but all the town knew 
he had been shot by M. de Castillonnes on one of the islands on 
the Rhine, opposite Kehl, where he was now lying. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


ACROSS THE ALPS 


UR discursive muse must now take her place in the little 



britzska in which Clive Newcome and his companions are 


^ travelling, and cross the Alps in that vehicle, beholding 
the snows on Saint Gothard, and the beautiful region through which 
the Ticino rushes on its way to the Lombard lakes, and the great 
corn-covered plains of the Milanese ; and that royal city, with the 
cathedral for its glittering crown, only less magnificent than the 
imperial dome of Rome. I have some long letters from Mr. Clive, 
written during this youthful tour, every step of which, from the 
departure at Baden to the gate of Milan, he describes as beautiful ; 
and doubtless, the delightful scenes through which the young man 
went had their effect in soothing any private annoyances with which 
his journey commenced. The aspect of nature, in that fortunate 
route which he took, is so noble and cheering, that our private 
affairs and troubles shrink away abashed before that serene splen- 
dour. 0 sweet peaceful scene of azure lake and snow-crowned 
mountain, so wonderfully lovely is your aspect, that it seems like 
heaven almost, and as if grief and care could not enter it ! What 
young Clive’s private cares were I knew not as yet in those days ; 
and he kept them out of his letters ; it was only in the intimacy of 
future life that some of these pains were revealed to me. 

Some three months after taking leave of Miss Ethel, our young 
gentleman found himself at Rome, with his friend Ridley still for a 
companion. Many of us, young or middle-aged, have felt that 
delightful shock w r hich the first sight of the great city inspires. 
There is one other place of which the view strikes one with an 
emotion even greater than that with which we look at Rome, where 
Augustus was reigning when He saw the day whose birthplace is 
separated but by a hill or two from the awful gates of Jerusalem. 
Who that has beheld both can forget that first aspect of either 1 ? 
At the end of years the emotion occasioned by the sight still thrills 
in your memory, and it smites you as at the moment when you first 
viewed it. 

The business of the present novel, however, lies neither with 


368 


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priest nor pagan, but with Mr. Clive Newcome, and his affairs and 
his companions at this period of his life. Nor, if the gracious reader 
expects to hear of cardinals in scarlet, and noble Roman princes and 
princesses, will he find such in this history. The only noble Roman 
into whose mansion our friend got admission was the Prince Polonia, 
whose footmen wear the liveries of the English Royal family, who 
gives gentlemen and even painters cash upon good letters of credit ; 
and, once or twice in a season, opens his Transtiberine palace and 
treats his customers to a ball. Our friend Clive used jocularly to 
say, he believed there were no Romans. There were priests in 
portentous hats ; there were friars with shaven crowns ; there were 
the sham peasantry, who dressed themselves out in masquerade 
costumes, with bagpipe and goat-skin, with crossed leggings and 
scarlet petticoats, who let themselves out to artists at so many pauls 
per sitting ; but he never passed a Roman’s door except to buy a 
cigar or to purchase a handkerchief. Thither, as elsewhere, we 
carry our insular habits with us. We have a little England at 
Paris, a little England at Munich, Dresden, everywhere. Our friend 
is an Englishman, and did at Rome as the English do. 

There was the polite English society, the society that flocks to 
see the Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the 
Vatican to behold the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the 
churches on public festivals in black veils and deputy-lieutenants’ 
uniforms, and stares, and talks, and uses opera-glasses while the 
pontiffs of the Roman Church are performing its ancient rites, and 
the crowds of faithful are kneeling round the altars ; the society 
which gives its balls and dinners, has its scandal and bickerings, its 
aristocrats, parvenus, toadies imported from Belgravia ; has its club, 
its hunt, and its Hyde Park on the Pincio : and there is the other 
little English world, the broad-hatted, long-bearded, velvet-jacketed, 
jovial colony of the artists, who have their own feasts, haunts, and 
amusements by the side of their aristocratic compatriots, with whom 
but few of them have the honour to mingle. 

J. J. and Clive engaged pleasant lofty apartments in the Via 
Gregoriana. Generations of painters had occupied these chambers 
and gone their way. The windows of their painting-room looked 
into a quaint old garden, where there were ancient statues of the 
Imperial time, a babbling fountain, and noble orange-trees, with 
broad clustering leaves and golden balls of fruit, glorious to look 
upon. Their walks abroad were endlessly pleasant and delightful. 
In every street there were scores of pictures of the graceful char- 
acteristic Italian life, which our painters seem one and all to reject, 
preferring to depict their quack brigands, Contadini, Pifferari, and 
the like, because Thompson painted them before Jones, and Jones 


THE NEWCOMES 


369 

before Thompson, and so on, backwards into time. There were the 
children at play, the women huddled round the steps of the open 
doorways, in the kindly Roman winter ; grim portentous old hags, 
such as Michael Angelo painted, draped in majestic raggery ; mothers 
and swarming bam bins ; slouching countrymen, dark of beard and 
noble of countenance, posed in superb attitudes, lazy, tattered, and 
majestic. There came the red troops, the black troops, the blue 
troops of the army of priests ; the snuffy regiments of Capuchins, 
grave and grotesque ; the trim French abbds ; my lord the bishop, 
with his footmen (those wonderful footmen ) ; my lord the cardinal, 
in his ramshackle coach, and his two, nay, three footmen behind 
him ; flunkeys that look as if they had been dressed by the costumier 
of a British pantominie ; coach with prodigious emblazonments of 
hats and coats-of-arms, that seems as if it came out of the pantomime 
too, and was about to turn into something else. So it is, that what 
is grand to some persons’ eyes appears grotesque to others ; and for 
certain sceptical persons, that step, which we have heard of, between 
the sublime and the ridiculous, is not visible. 

“I wish it were not so,” writes Clive, in one of the letters 
wherein he used to pour his full heart out in those days. “ I see 
these people at their devotions, and envy them their rapture. A 
friend, who belongs to the old religion, took me, last week, into a 
church where the Virgin lately appeared in person to a Jewish 
gentleman, flashed down upon him from heaven in light and splendour 
celestial, and, of course, straightway converted him. My friend 
bade me look at the picture, and, kneeling down beside me, I know 
prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might shine down 
upon me too ; but I saw no glimpse of heaven at all, I saw but a 
poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with 

tawdry strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W went 

away, humbly saying ‘that such might have happened again if 
Heaven so willed it.’ I could not but feel a kindness and admira- 
tion for the good man. I know his works are made to square with 
his faith, that he dines on a crust, lives as chastely as a hermit, 
and gives his all to the poor. 

“ Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many respects, 
so superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They 
seem to answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes 
away satisfied as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. 
Of course our first pilgrimage was to St. Peter’s. What a walk ! 
Under what noble shadows does one pass : how great and liberal the 
houses are, with generous casements and courts, and great grey 
portals which giants might get through and keep their turbans on ! 
Why, the houses are twice as tall as Lamb Court itself ; and over 
8 2 a 


370 


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them hangs a noble dinge, a venerable mouldy splendour. Over 
the solemn portals are ancient mystic escutcheons — vast shields of 
princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto’s knights might take down ; 
and every figure about them is a picture by himself. At every turn 
there is a temple ; in every court a brawling fountain. Besides the 
people of the streets and houses, and the army of priests black 
and brown, there’s a great silent population of marble. There are 
battered gods tumbled out of Olympus and broken in the fall, and 
set up under niches and over fountains ; there are senators name- 
lessly, noselessly, noiselessly seated under archways, or lurking in 
courts and gardens. And then, besides these defunct ones, of whom 
these old figures may be said to be the corpses, there is the reigning 
family, a countless carved hierarchy of angels, saints, confessors of 
the latter dynasty, which has conquered the court of Jove. I say, 
Pen, I wish Warrington would write the history of the ‘ Last of the 
Pagans.’ Did you never have a sympathy for them as the monks 
came rushing into their temples, kicking down their poor altars, 
smashing the fair calm faces of their gods, and sending their vestals 
a-flying 1 They are always preaching here about the persecution of 
the Christians. Are not the churches full of martyrs with choppers 
in their meek heads ; virgins on gridirons ; riddled St. Sebastians, 
and the like 1 But have they never persecuted in their turn 1 Oh 
me ! You and I know better, who were bred up near to the pens 
of Sinithfield, where Protestants and Catholics have taken their turn 
to be roasted. 

“ You pass through an avenue of angels and saints on the bridge 
across Tiber, all in action ; their great wings seem clanking, their 
marble garments clapping ; St. Michael, descending upon the Fiend, 
has been caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the Castle of 
St. Angelo, his enemy doubtless fell crushing through the roof and 
so downwards. He is as natural as blank verse — that bronze angel 
— set, rhythmic, grandiose. You’ll see, some day or other, he’s a 
great sonnet, sir, I’m sure of that. Milton wrote in bronze : I 
am sure Virgil polished off his * Georgies ’ in marble — sweet calm 
shapes ! exquisite harmonies of line ! As for the ‘ iEneid ’ ; that, 
sir, I consider to be so many bas-reliefs, mural ornaments which 
affect me not much. 

“ I think I have lost sight of St. Peter’s, haven’t II Yet it is 
big enough. How it makes your heart beat when you first see it ! 
Ours did as we came in at night from Civita Vecchia, and saw a 
great ghostly darkling dome rising solemnly up into the grey night, 
and keeping us company ever so long as w r e drove, as if it had been 
an orb fallen out of heaven w r ith its light put out. As you look at 
it from the Pincio, and the sun sets behind it, surely that aspect of 


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371 


earth and sky is one of the grandest in the world, I don’t like to 
say that the facade of the church is ugly and obtrusive. As long 
as the dome overawes, that facade is supportable. You advance 
towards it — through, oh, such a noble court ! with fountains flash- 
ing up to meet the sunbeams ; and right and left of you two 
sweeping half-crescents of great columns ; but you pass by the 
courtiers and up to the steps of the throne, and the dome seems to 
disappear behind it. It is as if the throne was upset, and the king 
had toppled over. 

“ There must be moments, in Rome especially, when every man 
of friendly heart, who writes himself English and Protestant, must 
feel a pang at thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated 
from European Christendom. An ocean separates us. From one 
shore or the other one can see the neighbour cliffs on clear days : 
one must wish sometimes that there were no stormy gulf between 
us ; and that from Canterbury to Rome a pilgrim could pass, and 
not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts of the great 
Mother Church I believe among us many people have no idea ; we 
think of lazy friars, of pining cloistered virgins, of ignorant peasants 
worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences, abso- 
lutions, and the like commonplaces of Protestant satire. Lo ! 
yonder inscription, which blazes round the dome of the temple, so 
great and glorious it looks like heaven almost, and as if the words 
were written in stars, it proclaims to all the world that this is 
Peter, and on this rock the Church shall be built, against which 
Hell shall not prevail. Under the bronze canopy his throne is lit 
with lights that have been burning before it for ages. Round this 
stupendous chamber are ranged the grandees of his court. Faith 
seems to be realised in their marble figures. Some of them were 
alive but yesterday ; others, to be as blessed as they, walk the world 
even now doubtless ; and the commissioners of heaven, here holding 
their court a hundred years hence, shall authoritatively announce 
their beatification. The signs of their power shall not be wanting. 
They heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cause the lame to 
walk to-day as they did eighteen centuries ago. Are there not 
crowds ready to bear witness to their wonders'? Is not there a 
tribunal appointed to try their claims ; advocates to plead for and 
against ; prelates and clergy and multitudes of faithful to back and 
believe them 1 ? Thus you shall kiss the hand of a priest to-day, 
who has given his to a friar whose bones are already beginning to 
work miracles, who has been the disciple of another whom the 
Church has just proclaimed a saint, — hand in hand they hold by 
one another till the line is lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us 
acknowledge this, and go and kiss the toe of St. Peter. Alas ! 


3 72 


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there’s the Channel always between us ; and we no more believe in 
the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury, than that the bones of 
his Grace John Bird, who sits in St. Thomas’s chair presently, will 
work wondrous cures in the year 2000 : that his statue will speak, 
or his portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence will wink. 

“ So, you see, at those grand ceremonies which the Roman 
Church exhibits at Christmas, I looked on as a Protestant. Holy 
Father on his throne or in his palanquin, cardinals with their tails 
and their train-bearers, mitred bishops and abbots, regiments of 
friars and clergy, relics exposed for adoration, columns draped, altars 
illuminated, incense smoking, organs pealing, and boxes of piping 
soprani, Swiss guards with slashed breeches and fringed halberts ; — 
between us and all this splendour of old-world ceremony there’s an 
ocean flowing : and yonder old statue of Peter might have been 
Jupiter again, surrounded by a procession of flamens and augurs, 
and Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, to inspect the sacrifices, — and 
my feelings at the spectacle had been, doubtless, pretty much the 
same. 

“Shall I utter any more heresies'? I am an unbeliever in 
Raphael’s ‘ Transfiguration ’ — the scream of that devil-possessed boy, 
in the lower part of the figure of eight (a stolen boy too), jars the 
whole music of the composition. On Miihael Angelo’s great wall 
the grotesque and terrible are not out of place. What an awful 
achievement ! Fancy the state of mind of the man who worked it 
— as alone, day after day, he devised and drew those dreadful 
figures ! Suppose, in the days of the Olympian dynasty, the sub- 
dued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a palace for Jove, they 
would have brought in some such tremendous work; or suppose 
that Michael descended to the Shades, and brought up this picture 
out of the halls of Limbo. I like a thousand and a thousand times 
better to think of Raphael’s loving spirit. As he looked at women 
and children, his beautiful face must have shone like sunshine ; his 
kind hand must have caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. 
If I protest against the 4 Transfiguration,’ and refuse to worship at 
that altar before which so many generations have knelt, there are 
hundreds of others which I salute thankfully. It is not so much in 
the set harangues (to take another metaphor) as in the daily tones 
and talk that his voice is so delicious. Sweet poetry and music, 
and tender hymns drop from him : he lifts his pencil, and something 
gracious falls from it on the paper. How noble his mind must have 
been ! it seems but to receive, and his eye only to rest on what 
is great, and generous, and lovely. You walk through crowded 
galleries, where are pictures ever so large and pretentious; and 
come upon a grey paper, or a little fresco, bearing his mark — and 


THE NEWCOMES 


373 


over all the brawl and the throng you recognise his sweet presence. 
‘ I would like to have been Giulio Romano,’ J. J. says (who does 
not care for Giulio’s pictures), ‘because then I would have been 
Raphael’s favourite pupil.’ We agreed that we would rather have 
seen him and William Shakspeare, than all the men we ever read 
of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy — as Spagnoletto did ! 
There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious shape. 
There’s a fellow in our mess at the £ Lepre,’ a clever enough fellow 
too — and not a bad fellow to the poor. He was a Gandishite. 
He is a genre and portrait painter by the name of Haggard. He 
hates J. J. because Lord Fareham, who is here, has given J. J. an 
order; and he hates me because I wear a clean shirt and ride a 
cock-horse 

“ I wish you could come to our mess at the c Lepre.’ It’s such 
a dinner ! such a table-cloth ! such a waiter ! such a company ! 
Every man has a beard and a sombrero : and you would fancy 
we were a band of brigands. We are regaled with woodcocks, 
snipes, wild swans, ducks, robins, and owls and otwvoto-t re 7racri 
for dinner ; and with three pauls’ worth of wines and victuals the 
hungriest has enough, even Claypole the sculptor. Did you ever 
know him 1 He used to come to the ‘ Haunt.’ He looks like the 
Saracen’s head with his beard now. There is a French table still 
more hairy than ours, a German table, an American table. After 
dinner we go and have coffee and mezzo-caldo at the ‘ Caffb Greco ’ 
over the way. Mezzo-caldo is not a bad drink : a little rum, a 
slice of fresh citron, lots of pounded sugar, and boiling water for 
the rest. Here in various parts of the cavern (it is a vaulted low 
place) the various nations have their assigned quarters, and we 
drink our coffee and strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or 
Bernini, selon les gouts, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would 
make Warrington’s lungs dilate with pleasure. We get very good 
cigars for a bajocco and a half — that is, very good for us cheap 
tobacconalians ; and capital when you have got no others. M‘Collop 
is here : he made a great figure at a cardinal’s reception in the tartan 
of the M‘Collop. He is splendid at the tomb of the Stuarts, and 
wanted to cleave Haggard down to the chine with his claymore 
for saying that Charles Edward was often drunk. 

“ Some of us have our breakfasts at the ‘ Caffk Greco ’ at dawn. 
The birds are very early birds here ; and you’ll see the great 
sculptors — the old Dons, you know, who look down on us young 
fellows — at their coffee here when it is yet twilight. As I am 
a swell, and have a servant, J. J. and I breakfast at our lodgings. 
I wish you could see Terribile our attendant, and Ottavia our old 
woman ; you will see both of them on the canvas one day. When 


374 


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he hasn't blacked our boots and has got our breakfast, Terribile the 
valet-de-chambre becomes Terribile the model. He has figured on 
a hundred canvases ere this, and almost ever since he was born. 
All his family were models. His mother having been a Venus, 
is now a Witch of Endor. His father is in the patriarchal line : 
he has himself done the cherubs, the shepherd-boys, and now is 
a grown man and ready as a warrior, a pifferaro, a Capuchin, or 
what you will. 

“ After the coffee and the ‘ Caffk Greco ’ we all go to the Life 
Academy. After the Life Academy, those who belong to the 
world dress and go out to tea-parties just as if we were in London. 
Those who are not in society have plenty of fun of their own — and 
better fun than the tea-party fun too. Jack Screwby has a night 
once a week, sardines and ham for supper, and a cask of Marsala 
in the corner. Your humble servant entertains on Thursdays : 
which is Lady Fitch’s night too ; and I flatter myself some of the 
London dandies who are passing the winter here prefer the cigars 
and humble liquors which wo dispense to tea and Miss Fitch’s 
performance on the pianoforte. 

“ What is that I read in Galignani about Lord K — and an 
affair of honour at Baden? Is it my dear kind jolly Kew with 
whom some one has quarrelled ? I know those who will be even more 
grieved than I am, should anything happen to the best of good 
fellows. A great friend of Lord Kew’s, Jack Belsize commonly 
called, came with us from Baden through Switzerland, and we left 
him at Milan. I see by the paper that his elder brother is dead, 
and so poor Jack will be a great man some day. I wish the 
chance had happened sooner if it was to befall at all. So my 
amiable cousin, Barnes Newcome Newcome, Esquire, has married 
my Lady Clara Pulleyn ; I wish her joy of her bridegroom. All I 
have heard of that family is from the newspaper. If you meet 
them, tell me anything about them. We had a very pleasant 
time altogether at Baden. I suppose the accident to Kew will 
put off his marriage with Miss Newcome. They have been engaged, 
you know, ever so long. — And — do, do write to me and tell me 
something about London. It’s best I should stay here and work 
this winter and the next. J. J. has done a famous picture, and 
if I send a couple home, you’ll give them a notice in the Pall 
Mall Gazette — won’t you? — for the sake of old times and yours 
affectionately, Clive Newcome.” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 

IN WHICH M. DE FLORAC IS PROMOTED 

H OWEVER much Madame la Duchesse d’lvry was disposed 
to admire and praise her own conduct in the affair which 
ended so unfortunately for poor Lord Kew, between whom 
and the Gascon her Grace vowed that she had done everything 
in her power to prevent a battle, the old Duke, her lord, was, it 
appeared, by no means delighted with his wife’s behaviour, nay, 
visited her with his very sternest displeasure. Miss O’Grady, the 
Duchess’s companion and her little girl’s instructress, at this time 
resigned her functions in the Ivry family ; it is possible that in the 
recriminations consequent upon the governess’s dismissal, the Miss 
Irlandaise, in whom the family had put so much confidence, divulged 
stories unfavourable to her patroness, and caused the indignation of 
the Duke her husband. Between Florae and the Duchess there 
was also open war and rupture. He had been one of Kew’s seconds 
in the latter’s affair with the Vicomte’s countryman. He had even 
cried out for fresh pistols and proposed to engage Castillonnes when 
his gallant principal fell; and though a second duel was luckily 
averted as murderous and needless, M. de Florae never hesitated 
afterwards, and in all companies, to denounce with the utmost 
virulence the instigator and the champion of the odious original 
quarrel. He vowed that the Duchess had shot le petit Kiou as 
effectually as if she had herself fired the pistol at his breast. 
Murderer, poisoner, Brinvilliers, a hundred more such epithets he 
used against his kinswoman, regretting that the good old times were 
past — that there was no Chambre Ardente to try her, and no rack 
and wheel to give her her due. 

The biographer of the Newcomes has no need (although he 
possesses the fullest information) to touch upon the Duchess’s 
doings, further than as they relate to that most respectable English 
family. When the Duke took his wife into the country, Florae 
never hesitated to say that to live with her was dangerous for the 
old man, and to cry out to his friends of the Boulevards or the 
Jockey Club, “ Ma parole d’honneur, cette femme le tuera ! ” 

Do you know, 0 gentle and unsuspicious readers, or have you 


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ever reckoned as you made your calculation of society, how many 
most respectable husbands help to kill their wives — how many 
respectable wives aid in sending their husbands to Hades ? The 
wife of a chimney-sweep or a journeyman butcher comes shuddering 
before a police magistrate — her head bound up — her body scarred 
and bleeding with wounds, which the drunken ruffian her lord has 
administered ; a poor shopkeeper or mechanic is driven out of his 
home by the furious ill-temper of the shrill virago his wife — takes 
to the public-house — to evil courses — to neglecting his business — 
to the gin-bottle — to delirium tremens — to perdition. Bow Street, 
and policemen, and the newspaper reporters, have cognizance and 
a certain jurisdiction over these vulgar matrimonial crimes ; but in 
politer company how many murderous assaults are there by husband 
or wife — where the woman is not felled by the actual fist, though 
she staggers and sinks under blows quite as cruel and effectual; 
where, with old wounds yet unhealed, which she strives to hide 
under a smiling face from the world, she has to bear up and to be 
stricken down and to rise to her feet again, under fresh daily strokes 
of torture ; where the husband, fond and faithful, has to suffer 
slights, coldness, insult, desertion, his children sneered away from 
their love for him, his friends driven from his door by jealousy, his 
happiness strangled, his whole life embittered, poisoned, destroyed ! 
If you were acquainted with the history of every family in your 
street, don’t you know that in two or three of the houses there such 
tragedies have been playing? Is not the young mistress of No. 20 
already pining at her husband’s desertion? The kind master of 
No. 30 racking his fevered brains and toiling through sleepless nights 
to pay for the jewels on his wife’s neck, and the carriage out of 
which she ogles Lothario in the Park ? The fate under which man 
or woman falls, blow of brutal tyranny, heartless desertion, weight 
of domestic care too heavy to bear — are not blows such as these 
constantly striking people down ? In this long parenthesis we are 
wandering ever so far away from M. le Due and Madame la 
Duchesse d’lvry, and from the vivacious Florae’s statement regard- 
ing his kinsman, that that woman will kill him. 

There is this at least to be said, that if the Due d’lvry did die 
he was a very old gentleman, and had been a great viveur for at 
least threescore years of his life. As Prince de Montcontour in 
his father’s time before the Revolution, during the Emigration, even 
after the Restoration, M. le Due had vecu with an extraordinary 
vitality. He had gone through good and bad fortune : extreme 
poverty, display and splendour, affairs of love, affairs of honour, and 
of one disease or another a man must die at the end. After the 
Baden business — and he had dragged off his wife to Champagne — 


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the Duke became greatly broken ; he brought his little daughter to 
a convent at Paris, putting the child under the special guardianship 
of Madame de Florae, with whom and with whose family in these 
latter days the old chief of the house effected a complete reconcilia- 
tion. The Duke was now for ever coming to Madame de Florae ; he 
poured all his wrongs and griefs into her ear with garrulous senile 
eagerness. “ That little Duchesse is a M&lde, a monstre, a femme 
d’Eugkne Sue,” the Vicomte used to say; “the poor old Duke he cry 
— ma parole d’honneur, he cry, and I cry too when he comes to re- 
count to my poor mother, whose sainted heart is the asile of all griefs, 
a real Hotel Dieu, my word the most sacred, with beds for all the 
afflicted, with sweet words, like Sisters of Charity, to minister to 
them : — I cry, mon bon Pendennis, when this vieillard tells his stories 
about his wife and tears his white hairs to the feet of my mother.” 

When the little Antoinette was separated by her father from 
her mother, the Duchesse dTvry, it might have been expected that 
that poetess would have dashed off a few more cris de Vame , 
shrieking according to her wont, and baring and beating that 
shrivelled maternal bosom of hers, from which her child had been 
just torn. The child skipped and laughed to go away to the 
convent. It was only when she left Madame de Florae that she 
used to cry ; and when urged by that good lady to exhibit a little 
decorous sentiment in writing to her mamma, Antoinette would ask, 
in her artless way, “Pourquoi 1 ? Mamma used never to speak to 
me except sometimes before the world, before ladies, that under- 
stands itself. When her gentleman came, she put me to the door; she 
gave me tapes, oh oui, she gave me tapes ! I cry no more ; she has 
so much made to cry M. le Due, that it is quite enough of one in a 
family.” So Madame la Duchesse dTvry did not weep, even in 
print, for the loss of her pretty little Antoinette ; besides, she was 
engaged, at that time, by other sentimental occupations. A young 
grazier of their neighbouring town, of an aspiring mind and remark- 
able poetic talents, engrossed the Duchesse’s platonic affections at 
this juncture. When he had sold his beasts at market, he would 
ride over and read Rousseau and Schiller with Madame la Duchesse, 
who formed him. His pretty young wife was rendered miserable by 
all these readings, but what could the poor little ignorant country- 
woman know of Platonism 'l Faugh ! there is more than one woman 
we see in society smiling about from house to house, pleasant and 
sentimental and formosa superne enough ; but I fancy a fish’s tail 
is flapping under her fine flounces, and a forked fin at the end of it ! 

Finer flounces, finer bonnets, more lovely wreaths, more beautiful 
lace, smarter carriages, bigger white bows, larger footmen, were not 


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seen (luring all the season of 18 — , than appeared round about St. 
George’s, Hanover Square, in the beautiful month of June succeeding 
that September when so many of our friends the New comes were 
assembled at Baden. Those flaunting carriages, powdered and 
favoured footmen, were in attendance upon members of the New- 
come family and their connections, who were celebrating what is 
called a marriage in high life in the temple within. Shall we set 
down a catalogue of the Dukes, Marquises, Earls, who were present, 
cousins of the lovely bride ? Are they not already in the Morning 
Post and Court Journal , as well as in the Newcome Sentinel and 
Independent , and the Dorking Intelligencer and Chanticlere Weekly 
Gazette ? There they are, all printed at full length sure enough : 
the name of the bride, Lady Clara Pulleyn, the lovely and accom- 
plished daughter of the Earl and Countess of Dorking; of the 
beautiful bridesmaids, the Ladies Henrietta, Belinda, Adelaide 
Pulleyn, Miss Newcome, Miss Alice Newcome, Miss Maude New- 
come, Miss Anna Maria (Hobson) Newcome; and all the other 
persons engaged in the ceremony. It was performed by the Right 
Honourable and Right Reverend Viscount Gallowglass, Bishop of 
Ballyshannon, brother-in-law to the bride, assisted by the Honour- 
able and Reverend Hercules O’Grady, his Lordship’s Chaplain, and 
the Reverend John Bulders, Rector of St. Mary’s, Newcome. Then 
follow the names of all the nobility who were present, and of the 
noble and distinguished personages who signed the book. Then 
comes an account of the principal dresses, chefs-d’oeuvre of Madame 
Crinoline ; of the bride’s coronal of brilliants, supplied by Messrs. 
Morr and Stortimer ; of the veil of priceless Chantilly lace, the gift 
of the Dowager Countess of Kew. Then there is a description of 
the wedding-breakfast at the house of the bride’s noble parents, and 
of the cake, decorated by Messrs. Gunter with the most delicious 
taste and the sweetest hymeneal allusions. 

No mention was made by the fashionable chronicler of a slight 
disturbance which occurred at St. George’s, and which, indeed, was 
out of the province of such a genteel purveyor of news. Before 
the marriage service began, a woman of vulgar appearance and dis- 
orderly aspect, accompanied by two scared children, who took no 
part in the disorder occasioned by their mother’s proceeding, except 
by their tears and outcries to augment the disquiet, made her 
appearance in one of the pews of the church, was noted there by 
persons in the vestry, was requested to retire by a beadle, and 
was finally induced to quit the sacred precincts of the building by 
the very strongest persuasion of a couple of policemen ; X and Y 
laughed at one another, and nodded their heads knowingly as the 
poor wretch, with her whimpering boys was led away. They under- 


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stood very well who the personage was who had come to disturb 
the matrimonial ceremony ; it did not commence until Mrs. Delacy 
(as this lady chose to be called) had quitted this temple of Hymen. 
She slunk through the throng of emblazoned carriages, and the 
press of footmen arrayed as splendidly as Solomon in his glory. 
John jeered at Thomas, William turned his powdered head, and 
signalled Jeames, who answered with a corresponding grin, as the 
woman, with sobs, and wild imprecations, and frantic appeals, made 
her way through the splendid crowd, escorted by her aides-de-camp 
in blue. I dare say her little history was discussed at many a 
dinner-table that day in the basement storey of several fashionable 
houses. I know that at clubs in St. James’s the facetious little 
anecdote was narrated. A young fellow came to Bays’s after the 
marriage breakfast and mentioned the circumstance with funny 
comments ; although the Morning Post , in describing this affair 
in high life, naturally omitted all mention of such low people as 
Mrs. Delacy and her children. 

Those people who knew the noble families whose union had been 
celebrated by such a profusion of grandees, fine equipages, and foot- 
men, brass bands, brilliant toilettes, and wedding favours, asked 
how it was that Lord Kew did not assist at Barnes Newcome’s 
marriage ; other persons in society inquired waggishly why Jack 
Belsize was not present to give Lady Clara away. 

As for Jack Belsize, his clubs had not been ornamented by his 
presence for a year past. It was said he had broken the bank at 
Hombourg last autumn ; had been heard of during the winter at 
Milan, Venice, and Vienna; and when, a few months after the 
marriage of Barnes Newcome and Lady Clara, Jack’s elder brother 
died, and he himself became the next in succession to the title and 
estates of Highgate, many folks said it was a pity little Barney’s 
marriage had taken place so soon. Lord Kew was not present, 
because Kew was still abroad ; he had had a gambling duel with 
a Frenchman, and a narrow squeak for his life. He had turned 
Roman Catholic, some men said ; others vowed that he had joined 
the Methodist persuasion. At all events Kew had given up his 
wild courses, broken with the turf, and sold his stud off ; he was 
delicate yet, and his mother was taking care of him ; between whom 
and the old dowager of Kew, who had made up Barney’s marriage, 
as everybody knew, there was no love lost. 

Then who was the Prince de Montcontour, who, with his 
princess, figured at this noble marriage 1 There was a Montcontour, 
the Due d’lvry’s son, but he died at Paris before the Revolution 
of ’30 : one or two of the oldsters at Bays’s, Major Pendennis, 
General Tufto, old Cackleby — the old fogeys in a word — remembered 


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the Duke of Ivry when he was here during the Emigration, and 
when he was called Prince de Montcontour, the title of the eldest 
son of the family. Ivry was dead, having buried his son before 
him, and having left only a daughter by that young woman whom 
he married, and who led him such a life. Who was this present 
Montcontour ? 

He was a gentleman to whom the reader has already been pre- 
sented, though, when we lately saw him at Baden, he did not enjoy 
so magnificent a title. Early in the year of Barnes JNTewcome’s 
marriage, there came to England, and to our modest apartment in the 
Temple, a gentleman bringing a letter of recommendation from our 
dear young Clive, who said that the bearer, the Yicomte de Florae, 
was a great friend of his, and of the ColoneFs, who had known his 
family from boyhood. A friend of our Clive and our Colonel was 
sure of a welcome in Lamb Court ; we gave him the hand of hospi- 
tality, the best cigar in the box, the easy-chair with only one broken 
leg, the dinner in chambers and at the club, the banquet at Green- 
wich (where, ma foi, the little whites baites elicited his profound 
satisfaction) ; in a word, did our best to honour that bill which our 
young Clive had drawn upon us. We considered the young one in 
the light of a nephew of our own ; we took a pride in him, and 
were fond of him ; and as for the Colonel, did we not love and 
honour him — would we not do our utmost in behalf of any stranger 
who came recommended to us by Thomas Newcome’s good word 1 
So Florae was straightway admitted to our companionship. We 
showed him the town, and some of the modest pleasures thereof; 
we introduced him to the “ Haunt,” and astonished him by the 
company which he met there. Between Brent’s “Deserter” and 
Mark Wilder’s “ Garryowen ” Florae sang — 

“ Tiens, voici ma pipe, voilk mon bri — quet ; 

Et quand la Tulipe fait le noir tra — jet, 

Que tu sois la seule dans le regi — ment 
Avec le brule-gueule de ton cher z’a — mant ! ’’ 

to the delight of Tom Sarjent, who, though he only partially 
comprehended the words of the song, pronounced the singer to 
be a rare gentleman, full of most excellent differences. We took 
our Florae to the Derby; we presented him in Fitzroy Square, 
whither we still occasionally went, for Clive’s and our dear Colonel’s 
sake. 

The Yicomte pronounced himself strongly in favour of the 
blanche Miss, little Bosey Mackenzie, of whom we have lost sight 
for some few chapters. Mrs. Mack he considered, my faith, to be 
a woman superb. He used to kiss the tips of his own fingers, in 


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token of his admiration for the lovely widow ; he pronounced her 
again more pretty than her daughter, and paid her a thousand com- 
pliments which she received with exceeding good-humour. If the 
Yicomte gave us to understand presently that Rosey and her mother 
were both in love with him, but that for all the world he would 
not meddle with the happiness of his dear little Clive, nothing 
unfavourable to the character or constancy of the before-mentioned 
ladies must be inferred from M. de Florae’s speech ; his firm con- 
viction being that no woman could pass many hours in his society 
without danger to her subsequent peace of mind. 

For some little time we had no reason to suspect that our 
French friend was not particularly well furnished with the current 
coin of the realm. Without making any show of wealth, he would, 
at first, cheerfully engage in our little parties ; his lodgings in the 
neighbourhood of Leicester Square, though dingy, were such as 
many noble foreign exiles have inhabited. It was not until he 
refused to join some pleasure trip which we of Lamb Court pro- 
posed, honestly confessing his poverty, that we were made aware of 
the Yicomte’s little temporary calamity ; and, as we became more 
intimate with him, he acquainted us, with great openness, with the 
history of all his fortunes. He described energetically that splendid 
run of luck which had set in at Baden with Clive’s loan ; his 
winnings, at that fortunate period, had carried him through the 
winter with considerable brilliancy, but bouillotte and Mademoiselle 
Atala, of the Varies (une ogresse , mon cher ! who devours thirty 
of our young men every year in her cavern, in the Rue de Brdda !), 
had declared against him, and the poor Yicomte’s pockets were 
almost empty when he came to London. 

He was amiably communicative regarding himself, and told us 
his virtues and his faults (if indeed a passion for play and for women 
could be considered as faults in a gay young fellow of two or three 
and forty) with a like engaging frankness. He would weep in 
describing his angel mother ; he would fly off again into tirades 
respecting the wickedness, the wit, the extravagance, the charms of 
the young lady of the Yaridtds. He would then (in conversation) 
introduce us to Madame de Florae, nee Higg, of Manchesterre. His 
prattle was incessant, and to my friend Mr. Warrington especially, 
he was an object of endless delight and amusement and wonder. He 
would roll and smoke countless paper cigars, talking unrestrainedly 
when we were not busy, silent when we were engaged ; he would 
only rarely partake of our meals, and altogether refused all offers of 
pecuniary aid. He disappeared at dinner-time into the mysterious 
purlieus of Leicester Square and dark ordinaries only frequented by 
Frenchmen. As we walked with him in the Regent Street precincts, 


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lie would exchange marks of recognition with many dusky personages, 
smoking bravos, and whiskered refugees of his nation. “ That gentle- 
man,” he would say, “ who has done me the honour to salute me, is 
a coiffeur of the most celebrated ; he forms the delices of our table- 
d’hote. ‘ Bon jour, mon cher monsieur ! ’ We are friends, though 
not of the same opinion. Monsieur is a republican of the most 
distinguished ; conspirator of profession, and at this time engaged 
in constructing an infernal machine to the address of his Majesty 
Louis Philippe, King of the French. Who is my friend with the 
scarlet beard and the white paletot? My good Warrington! you 
do not move in the world : you make yourself a hermit, my 
dear ! Not know monsieur ! — Monsieur is secretary to Mademoiselle 
Caracoline, the .lovely rider at the circus of Astley ; I shall be 
charmed to introduce you to this amiable society some day at our 
table-d’hote.” 

Warrington vowed that the company of Florae’s friends would 
be infinitely more amusing than the noblest society ever chronicled 
in the Morning Post; but we were neither sufficiently familiar 
with the French language to make conversation in that tongue 
as pleasant to us as talking in our own ; and so were content 
with Florae’s description of his compatriots, which the Vicomte 
delivered in that charming Frencli-English of which he was a 
master. 

However threadbare in his garments, poor in purse, and eccentric 
in morals our friend was, his manners were always perfectly gentle- 
manlike, and he draped himself in his poverty with the grace of a 
Spanish grandee. It must be confessed that the grandee loved the 
estaminet where he could play billiards with the first comer ; that 
he had a passion for the gambling-house ; that he was a loose and 
disorderly nobleman , but, m whatever company he found himself, 
a certain kindness, simplicity, and politeness distinguished him 
always. He bowed to the damsel who sold him a penny cigar as 
graciously as to a duchess ; he crushed a manant’s impertinence or 
familiarity as haughtily as his noble ancestors ever did at the Louvre, 
at Marli, or Versailles. He declined to obtemperer to his landlady’s 
request to pay his rent, but he refused with a dignity which struck 
the woman with awe ; and King Alfred, over the celebrated muffin 
(on which Gandish and other painters have exercised their genius), 
could not have looked more noble than Florae in a robe-de-chambre, 
once gorgeous, but shady now as became its owner’s clouded fortunes, 
toasting his bit of bacon at his lodgings, when the fare even of his 
table-d’hote had grown too dear for him. 

As we know from Gandish’s work that better times were in 
store for the wandering monarch, and that the officers came acquaint- 


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383 


ing him that his people demanded his presence, a, grands cris , when 
of course King Alfred laid down the toasting-fork and resumed the 
sceptre ; so, in the case of Florae, two humble gentlemen, inhabitants 
of Lamb Court, and members of the Upper Temple, had the good 
luck to be the heralds, as it were, nay, indeed the occasion, of the 
rising fortunes of the Prince de Montcontour. Florae had informed 
us of the death of his cousin the Due dTvry, by whose demise the 
Vicomte’s father, the old Count de Florae, became the representative 
of the house of Ivry, and possessor, through his relative’s bequest, 
of an old chateau still more gloomy and spacious than the Count’s 
own house in the Faubourg St. Germain — a chateau of which the 
woods, domains, and appurtenances had been lopped off by the 
Revolution. ts Monsieur le Comte,” Florae says, “ has not wished 
to change his name at his age ; he has shrugged his old shoulder, 
and said it was not the trouble to make to engrave a new card ; 
and for me,” the philosophical Vicomte added, “ of what good shall 
be a title of prince in the position where I find myself? ” It is 
wonderful for us who inhabit a country where rank is worshipped 
with so admirable a reverence, to think that there are many gentle- 
men in France who actually have authentic titles and do not choose 
to bear them. 

Mr. George Warrington was hugely amused with this notion of 
Florae’s ranks and dignities. The idea of the Prince purchasing 
penny cigars ; of the Prince mildly expostulating with his landlady 
regarding the rent; of his punting for half-crowns at a neigh- 
bouring hell in Air Street, whither the poor gentleman desperately 
ran when he had money in his pocket, tickled George’s sense of 
humour. It was Warrington who gravely saluted the Vicomte, 
and compared him to King Alfred, on that afternoon when we 
happened to call upon him and found him engaged in cooking his 
modest dinner. 

We were bent upon an excursion to Greenwich, and on having 
our friend’s company on that voyage, and we induced the Vicomte 
to forego his bacon, and be our guest for once. George Warrington 
chose to indulge in a great deal of ironical pleasantry in the course 
of the afternoon’s excursion. As we went down the river, he 
pointed out to Florae the very window in the Tower where the 
captive Duke of Orleans used to sit when he was an inhabitant of 
that fortress. At Greenwich, which palace Florae informed us was 
built by Queen Elizabeth, George showed the very spot where 
Raleigh laid his cloak down to enable her Majesty to step over a 
puddle. In a word, he mystified M. de Florae : such was Mr. 
Warrington’s reprehensible spirit. 

It happened that Mr. Barnes Newcome came to dine at Green- 


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wich on the same day when our little party took place. He had 
come down to meet Rooster and one or two other noble friends, 
whose names he took care to give us, cursing them, at the same 
time, for having thrown him over. Having missed his own com- 
pany, Mr. Barnes condescended to join ours, Warrington gravely 
thanking him for the great honour which he conferred upon us by 
volunteering to take a place at our table. Barnes drank freely, 
and was good enough to resume his acquaintance with Monsieur de 
Florae, whom he perfectly well recollected at Baden, but had 
thought proper to forget on the one or two occasions when they 
had met in public since the Vicomte’s arrival in this country. 
There are few men who can drop and resume an acquaintance with 
such admirable self-possession as Barnes Newcome. When, over 
our dessert, by which time all tongues were unloosed and each man 
talked gaily, George Warrington feelingly thanked Barnes, in a 
little mock speech, for his great kindness in noticing us, presenting 
him at the same time to Florae as the ornament of the City, the 
greatest banker of his age, the beloved kinsman of their friend 
Clive, who was always writing about him ; Barnes said, with one 
of his accustomed curses, he did not know whether Mr. Warrington 
was “ chaffing ” him or not, and indeed could never make him out. 
Warrington replied that he never could make himself out : and if 
ever Mr. Barnes could, George would thank him for information on 
that subject. 

Florae, like most Frenchmen, very sober in his potations, left 
us for a while over ours, which were conducted after the more 
liberal English manner, and retired to smoke his cigar on the 
terrace. Barnes then freely uttered his sentiments regarding him, 
which were not more favourable than those which the young gentle- 
man generally emitted respecting gentlemen whose backs were 
turned. He had known a little of Florae the year before, at 
Baden : he had been mixed up with Kew in that confounded row 
in which Kew was hit ; he was an adventurer, a pauper, a blackleg, 
a regular Greek ; he had heard Florae was of old family, that was 

true : but what of that 1 He was only one of those d French 

counts ; everybody was a count in France, confound ’em ! The 
claret was beastly — not fit for a gentleman to drink ! — He swigged 
off a great bumper as he was making the remark ; for Barnes New- 
come abuses the men and things which he uses, and perhaps is 
better served than more grateful persons. 

“ Count ! ” cries Warrington ; “ what do you mean by talking 
about beggarly counts 1 Florae’s family is one of the noblest and 
most ancient in Europe. It is more ancient than your illustrious 
friend the barber-surgeon ; it was illustrious before the house, ay, 


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385 


or the pagoda of Kew was in existence.” And he went on to 
describe how Florae, by the demise of his kinsman, was now actually 
Prince de Montcontour, though he did not choose to assume that 
title. Very likely the noble Gascon drink in which George had 
been indulging imparted a certain warmth and eloquence to his 
descriptions of Florae’s good qualities, high birth, and considerable 
patrimony; Barnes looked quite amazed and scared at these an- 
nouncements, then laughed and declared once more that Warrington 
was chaffing him. 

“ As sure as the Black Prince was Lord of Aquitaine — as sure 
as the English were masters of Bordeaux — and why did we ever 
lose the country?” cries George, filling himself a bumper, — “ every 
word I have said about Florae is true ; ” and Florae coming in at 
this juncture, having just finished his cigar, George turned round 
and made him a fine speech in the French language, in which he 
lauded his constancy and good-humour under evil fortune, paid 
him two or three more cordial compliments, and finished by drinking 
another great bumper to his good health. 

Florae took a little wine, replied “ with effusion ” to the toast 
which his excellent, his noble friend had just carried. We rapped 
our glasses at the end of the speech. The landlord himself seemed 
deeply touched by it as he stood by with a fresh bottle. “It is 
good wine — it is honest wine — it is capital wine,” says George, 
“ and honi soit qui mal y pense ! What business have you, you 
little beggar, to abuse it? my ancestor drank the wine and wore 
the motto round his leg long before a Newcome ever showed his 
pale face in Lombard Street.” George Warrington never bragged 
about his pedigree except under certain influences. I am inclined 
to think that on this occasion he really did find the claret very 
good. 

“You don’t mean to say,” says Barnes, addressing Florae in 
French, on which he piqued himself, “ que vous avez un tel manclie 
k votre nom, et que vous ne l’usez pas ? ” 

Florae shrugged his shoulders ; he at first did not understand 
that familiar figure of English speech, or what was meant by 
“having a handle to your name.” “Montcontour cannot dine 
better than Florae,” he said. “ Florae has two louis in his pocket, 
and Montcontour exactly forty francs. Florae’s proprietor will ask 
Montcontour to-morrow for five weeks’ rent ; and as for Florae’s 
friends, my dear, they will burst out laughing to Montcontour’s 
nose ! ” “ How droll you English are ! ” this acute French observer 

afterwards said, laughing, and recalling the incident. “Did you 
not see how that little Barnes, as soon as he knew my title of 
Prince, changed his manner and became all respect towards me ? ” 
8 2 b 


386 


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This, indeed, Monsieur de Florae’s two friends remarked with no 
little amusement. Barnes began quite well to remember their 
pleasant days at Baden, and talked of their acquaintance there ; 
Barnes offered the Prince the vacant seat in his brougham, and 
was ready to set him down anywhere that he wished in town. 

“Bah!” says Florae; “we came by the steamer, and I prefer 
the peniboat” But the hospitable Barnes nevertheless called upon 
Florae the next day. And now, having partially explained how 
the Prince de Montcontour was present at Mr. Barnes Newcome’s 
wedding, let us show how it was that Barnes’s first cousin, the 
Earl of Kew, did not attend that ceremony. 


/ 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


RETURNS TO LORD KEW 

W E do not propose to describe at length or with precision 
the circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortu- 
nately for young Lord Kew. The meeting was inevitable : 
after the public acts and insult of the morning, the maddened 
Frenchman went to it convinced that his antagonist had wilfully 
outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon the body of an 
Englishman, and as proud as if he had been going into actual w*ar. 
That commandment, the sixth in our decalogue, which forbids the 
doing of murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the 
same table, have been repealed by a very great number of French- 
men for many years past ; and to take the neighbour’s wife, and 
his life subsequently, has not been an uncommon practice with the 
politest people in the world. Castillonnes had no idea but that he 
was going to the field of honour ; stood with an undaunted scowl 
before his enemy’s pistol ; and discharged his own and brought 
down his opponent with a grim satisfaction, and a comfortable con- 
viction afterwards that he had acted en galant homme. “ It was 
•well for this mil or that he fell at the first shot, my dear,” the 
exemplary young Frenchman remarked ; “ a second might have been 
yet more fatal to him ; ordinarily I am sure of my coup , and you 
conceive that in an affair so grave it was absolutely necessary that 
one or other should remain on the ground.” Nay, should M. de 
Kew recover from his wound, it was M. de Castillonnes’ intention 
to propose a second encounter between himself and that nobleman. 
It had been Lord Kew’s determination never to fire upon his op- 
ponent, a confession which he made not to his second, poor scared 
Lord Rooster, who bore the young Earl to Kehl, but to some of his 
nearest relatives, who happened fortunately to be not far from him 
when he received his wound, and who came with all the eagerness 
of love to watch by his bedside. 

We have said that Lord Kew’s mother, Lady Walham, and her 
second son were staying at Hombourg, when the Earl’s disaster 
occurred. They had proposed to come to Baden to see Kew’s new 
bride, and to welcome her; but the presence of her mother-in-law 


388 


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deterred Lady Walhani, who gave up her heart’s wish in bitterness 
of spirit, knowing very well that a meeting between the old 
Countess and herself could only produce the wrath, pain, and 
humiliation which their coming together always occasioned. It 
was Lord Kew who bade Rooster send for his mother, and not for 
Lady Kew ; and as soon as she received those sad tidings, you may 
be sure the poor lady hastened to the bed where her wounded 
boy lay. 

The fever had declared itself, and the young man had been 
delirious more than once. His wan face lighted up with joy when 
he saw his mother ; he put his little feverish hand out of the bed 
to her — “I knew you would come, dear,” he said, “and you know 
I never would have fired upon the poor Frenchman.” The fond 
mother allowed no sign of terror or grief to appear upon her face, so 
as to disturb her first-born and darling ; but, no doubt, she prayed 
by his side as such loving hearts know how to pray, for the forgive- 
ness of his trespass, who had forgiven those who sinned against him. 
“ I knew I should be hit, George,” said Kew to his brother when 
they were alone ; “ I always expected some such end as this. My 
life has been very wild and reckless ; and you, George, have always 
been faithful to our mother. You will make a better Lord Kew 
than I have been, George. God bless you ! ” George flung himself 
down with sobs by his brother’s bedside, and swore Frank had 
always been the best fellow, the best brother, the kindest heart, the 
warmest friend in the world. Love — prayer — repentance, thus met 
over the young man’s bed. Anxious and humble hearts, his own 
the least anxious and the most humble, awaited the dread award 
of life or death ; and the world, and its ambition and vanities, were 
shut out from the darkened chamber where the awful issue was 
being tried. 

Our history has had little to do with characters resembling this 
lady. It is of the world, and things pertaining to it. Things 
beyond it, as the writer imagines, scarcely belong to the novelist’s 
province. Who is he that he should assume the divine’s office, or 
turn his desk into a preacher’s pulpit ? In that career of pleasure, 
of idleness, of crime we might call it (but that the chronicler of 
worldly matters had best be chary of applying hard names to acts 
which young men are doing in the world every day), the gentle 
widowed lady, mother of Lord Kew, could but keep aloof, deploring 
the course upon which her dear young prodigal had entered ; and 
praying with that saintly love, those pure supplications, with which 
good mothers follow their children, for her boy’s repentance and 
return. Very likely her mind was narrow ; very likely the pre- 
cautions which she had used in the lad’s early days, the tutors and 


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389 


directors she had set about him, the religious studies and practices 
to which she would have subjected him, had served only to vex and 
weary the young pupil, and to drive his high spirit into revolt. It 
is hard to convince a woman perfectly pure in her life and intentions, 
ready to die if need were for her own faith, having absolute confi- 
dence in the instruction of her teachers, that she and they (with 
all their sermons) may be doing harm. When the young catechist 
yawns over his reverence’s discourse, who knows but it is the 
doctor’s vanity which is enraged, and not Heaven which is offended ? 
It may have been, in the differences which took place between her 
son and her, the good Lady Walham never could comprehend the 
lad’s side of the argument; or how his protestantism against her 
doctrines should exhibit itself on the turf, the gaming-table, or the 
stage of the opera-house; and thus, but for the misfortune under 
which poor Kew now lay bleeding, these two loving hearts might 
have remained through life asunder. But by the boy’s bedside ; in 
the paroxysms of his fever ; in the wild talk of his delirium ; in 
the sweet patience and kindness with which he received his dear 
nurse’s attentions ; the gratefulness with which he thanked the 
servants who waited on him ; the fortitude with which he suffered 
the surgeon’s dealings with his wounds : the widowed woman had an 
opportunity to admire with an exquisite thankfulness the generous 
goodness of her son ; and, in those hours, those sacred hours passed 
in her own chamber, of prayers, fears, hopes, recollections, and 
passionate maternal love, wrestling with fate for her darling’s life, 
no doubt the humbled creature came to acknowledge that her own 
course regarding him had been wrong ; and, even more for herself 
than for him, implored forgiveness. 

For some time George Barnes had to send but doubtful and 
melancholy bulletins to Lady Kew and the Newcome family at 
Baden, who were all greatly moved and affected by the accident 
which had befallen poor Kew. Lady Kew broke out in wrath and 
indignation. We may be sure the Duchesse d’lvry offered to con- 
dole with her upon Kew’s mishap the day after the news arrived at 
Baden ; and, indeed, came to visit her. The old lady had just 
received other disquieting intelligence. She was just going out, 
but she bade her servant to inform the Duchesse that she was never 
more at home to the Duchesse d’lvry. The message was not 
delivered properly, or the person for whom it was intended did not 
choose to understand it, for presently, as the Countess was hobbling 
across the walk on her way to her daughter’s residence, she met 
the Duchesse d’lvry, who saluted her with a demure curtsey and a 
commonplace expression of condolence. The Queen of Scots was 
surrounded by the chief part of her court, saving, of course, MM. 


390 


THE NEWCOMES 


Castillonnes and Punter, absent on service. “We were speaking of 
this deplorable affair,” said Madame dTvry (which indeed was the 
truth, although she said it). “How we pity you, madame ! ” 
Blackball and Loder, Cruchecassde and Schlangenbad, assumed 
sympathetic countenances. 

Trembling on her cane, the old Countess glared out upon 
Madame d’lvry — “ I pray you, madame,” she said in French, 
“ never again to address me the word. If I had, like you, 
assassins in my pay, I would have you killed ; do you hear me 1 ” 
and she hobbled on her way. The household to which she went 
was in terrible agitation; the kind Lady Ann frightened beyond 
measure, poor Ethel full of dread, and feeling guilty almost as if she 
had been the cause, as indeed she was the occasion, of Kew’s mis- 
fortune. And the family had further cause of alarm from the 
shock which the news had given to Sir Brian. It has been said 
that he had had illnesses of late which caused his friends much 
anxiety. He had passed two months at Aix-la-Chapelle, his 
physicians dreading a paralytic attack ; and Madame d’lvry’s party 
still sauntering on the walk, the men smoking their cigars, the 
women breathing their scandal, now beheld Doctor Finck issuing 
from Lady Ann’s apartments, and wearing such a face of anxiety, 
that the Duchesse asked, with some emotion, “ Had there been a 
fresh bulletin from Kebl 1 ” 

“No, there had been no fresh bulletin from Kehl; but two 
hours since Sir Brian Newcome had had a paralytic seizure.” 

“ Is he very bad 1 ” 

“No,” says Dr. Finck, “he is not very bad.” 

“ How inconsolable M. Barnes will be ! ” said the Duchesse, 
shrugging her haggard shoulders. Whereas the fact was that Mr. 
Barnes retained perfect presence of mind under both of the mis- 
fortunes which had befallen his family. Two days afterwards the 
Duchesse’s husband arrived himself, when we may presume that 
exemplary woman was too much engaged with her own affairs to 
be able to be interested about the doings of other people. With 
the Duke’s arrival the court of Mary, Queen of Scots, was broken 
up. Her Majesty was conducted to Lochleven, where her tyrant 
soon dismissed her very last lady-in-waiting, the confidential Irish 
secretary, whose performance had produced such a fine effect 
amongst the Newcomes. 

Had poor Sir Brian Newcome’s seizure occurred at an earlier 
period of the autumn, his illness no doubt would have kept him 
for some months confined at Baden ; but as he was pretty nearly 
the last of Dr. Von Finck’s bath patients, and that eminent 
physician longed to be off to the Residenz, he was pronounced in 


THE NEWCOMES 


391 


a fit condition for easy travelling in rather a brief period after his 
attack, and it was determined to transport him to Mannheim, and 
thence by water to London and Newcome. 

During all this period of their father’s misfortune no sister of 
charity could have been more tender, active, cheerful, and watchful 
than Miss Ethel. She had to wear a kind face and exhibit no 
anxiety when occasionally the feeble invalid made inquiries regard- 
ing poor Kew at Baden ; to catch the phrases as they came from 
him ; to acquiesce, or not to deny, when Sir Brian ^ talked of the 
marriages — both marriages — taking place at Christmas. Sir Brian 
was especially eager for his daughter’s, and repeatedly, with his 
broken words, and smiles, and caresses, which were now quite 
senile, declared that his Ethel would make the prettiest countess 
in England. There came a letter or two from Clive, no doubt, 
to the young nurse in her sick-room. Manly and generous, full of 
tenderness and affection, as those letters surely were, they could 
give but little pleasure to the young lady — indeed, only add to her 
doubts and pain. 

She had told none of her friends as yet of those last words of 
Kew’s, which she interpreted as a farewell on the young nobleman’s 
part. Had she told them they very likely would not have under- 
stood Kew’s meaning as she did, and persisted in thinking that the 
two were reconciled. At any rate, whilst he and her father were 
still lying stricken by the blows which had prostrated them both, 
all questions of love and marriage had been put aside. Did she 
love him ? She felt such a kind pity for his misfortune, such an 
admiration for his generous gallantry, such a remorse for her own 
wayward conduct and cruel behaviour towards this most honest, 
and kindly, and affectionate gentleman, that the sum of regard 
which she could bestow upon him might surely be said to amount 
to love. For such a union as that contemplated between them, 
perhaps for any marriage, no greater degree of attachment was 
necessary than the common cement. Warm friendship and thorough 
esteem and confidence (I do not say that our young lady calculated 
in this matter-of-fact way) are safe properties invested in the prudent 
marriage stock, multiplying and bearing an increasing value with 
every year. Many a young couple of spendthrifts get through their 
capital of passion in the first twelve months, and have no love left 
for the daily demands of after life. Oh me ! for the day when the 
bank account is closed, and the cupboard is empty, and the firm of 
Damon and Phyllis insolvent ! 

Miss Newcome, w r e say, without doubt, did not make her cal- 
culations in this debtor and creditor fashion ; it was only the 
gentlemen of that family who went to Lombard Street. But 


392 


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suppose she thought that, regard, and esteem, and affection being 
sufficient, she could joyfully and with almost all her heart bring 
such a portion to Lord Kew ; that her harshness towards him as 
contrasted with his own generosity, and above all with his present 
pain, infinitely touched her; and suppose she fancied that there 
was another person in the world to whom, did fates permit, she 
could offer not esteem, affection, pity only, but something ten 
thousand times more precious 1 ? We are not in the young lady’s 
secrets, but if. she has some as she sits by her father’s chair and 
bed, who day or night will have no other attendant ; and, as she 
busies herself to interpret his wants, silently moves on his errands, 
administers his potions, and watches his sleep, thinks of Clive absent 
and unhappy, of Kew wounded and in danger, she must have sub- 
ject enough of thought and pain. Little wonder that her cheeks 
are pale and her eyes look red ; she has her cares to endure now 
in the world, and her burden to bear in it, and somehow she feels 
she is alone, since that day when poor Clive’s carriage drove away. 

In a mood of more than ordinary depression and weakness Lady 
Kew must have found her granddaughter upon one of the few 
occasions after the double mishap when Ethel and her elder were 
together. Sir Brian’s illness, as it may be imagined, affected a 
lady very slightly who was of an age When these calamities occasion 
but small disquiet, and who having survived her own father, her 
husband, her son, and witnessed their lordships’ respective demises 
with perfect composure, could not reasonably be called upon to feel 
any particular dismay at the probable departure from this life of 
a Lombard Street banker, who happened to be her daughter’s 
husband. In fact, not Barnes Newcome himself could await that 
event more philosophically. So, finding Ethel in this melancholy 
mood, Lady Kew thought a drive in the fresh air would be of 
service to her, and, Sir Brian happening to be asleep, carried the 
young girl away in her barouche. 

They talked about Lord Kew, of whom the accounts were 
encouraging, and who is mending in spite of his silly mother and 
her medicines, “and as soon as he is able to move we must go and 
fetch him, my dear,” Lady Kew graciously said, “before that foolish 
woman has made a Methodist of him. He is always led by the 
woman who is nearest him, and I know one who will make of him 
just the best little husband in England.” Before they had come 
to this delicate point the lady and her grandchild had talked Kew’s 
character over, the girl, you may be sure, having spoken feelingly 
and eloquently about his kindness and courage, and many admirable 
qualities. She kindled when she heard the report of his behaviour 
at the commencement of the fracas with M. de Castillonnes, his 


THE NEWCOMES 393 

great forbearance and good-nature, and his resolution and magna- 
nimity when the moment of collision came. 

But when Lady Kew arrived at that period of her discourse in 
which she stated that Kew would make the best little husband in 
England, poor Ethel’s eyes filled with tears; we must remember 
that her high spirit was worn down by watching and much varied 
anxiety, and then she confessed that there had been no reconcilia- 
tion, as all the family fancied, between Frank and herself — on the 
contrary, a parting, which she understood to be final ; and she 
owned that her conduct towards her cousin had been most captious 
and cruel, and that she could not expect they should ever again come 
together. Lady Kew, who hated sick-beds and surgeons, except 
for herself, who hated her daughter-in-law above all, was greatly 
annoyed at the news which Ethel gave her ; made light of it, how- 
ever, and was quite confident that a very few words from her would 
place matters on their old footing, and determined on forthwith 
setting out for Kehl. She would have carried Ethel with her, but 
that the poor Baronet with cries and moans insisted on retaining 
his nurse, and Ethel’s grandmother was left to undertake this 
mission by herself, the girl remaining behind acquiescent, not un- 
willing, owning openly a great regard and esteem for Kew, and the 
wrong which she had done him, feeling secretly a sentiment which 
she had best smother. She had received a letter from that other 
person, and answered it with her mother’s cognisance, but about 
this little affair, neither Lady Ann nor her daughter happened to 
say a word to the manager of the whole family. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


IN WHICH LADY KEW LEAVES HIS LORDSHIP QUITE 
CONVALESCENT 

I MMEDIATELY after Lord Kew’s wound, and as it was neces- 
sary to apprise the Newcome family of the accident which had 
occurred, the good-natured young Kew had himself written a 
brief note to acquaint his relatives with his mishap, and had even 
taken the precaution to antedate a couple of billets to be despatched 
on future days ; kindly forgeries, which told the Newcome family 
and the Countess of Kew that Lord Kew was progressing very 
favourably, and that his hurt was trifling. The fever had set 
in, and the young patient was lying in great danger, as most of 
the laggards at Baden knew, when his friends there were set at 
ease by this fallacious bulletin. On the third day after the acci- 
dent, Lady Walham arrived with her younger son, to find Lord 
Kew in the fever which ensued after the wound. As the terrible 
anxiety during the illness had been Lady Walham’s, so was hers 
the delight of the recovery. The commander-in-chief of the family, 
the old lady at Baden, showed her sympathy by sending couriers, 
and repeatedly issuing orders to have news of Kew. Sick-beds 
scared her away invariably. When illness befell a member of 
her family, she hastily retreated from before the sufferer, showing 
her agitation of mind, however, by excessive ill-humour to all the 
others within her reach. 

A fortnight passed, a ball had been found and extracted, the 
fever was over, the wound was progressing favourably, the patient 
advancing towards convalescence, and the mother, with her child 
once more under her wing, happier than she had been for seven 
years past, during which her young prodigal had been running the 
thoughtless career of which he himself was weary, and which had 
occasioned the fond lady such anguish. Those doubts which per- 
plex many a thinking man, and when formed and uttered give 
many a fond and faithful woman pain so exquisite, had most 
fortunately never crossed Kew’s mind. His early impressions were 
such as his mother had left them, and he came back to her as 
she would have him, as a little child, owning his faults with a 


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395 


hearty humble repentance, and with a thousand simple confessions 
lamenting the errors of hi^ past days. We have seen him tired 
and ashamed of the pleasures which he was pursuing, of the com- 
panions who surrounded him, of the brawls and dissipation which 
amused him no more; in those hours of danger and doubt, when 
he had lain, with death perhaps before him, making up his account 
of the vain life which probably he would be called upon to sur- 
render, no wonder this simple, kindly, modest, and courageous soul 
thought seriously of the past and of the future; and prayed, and 
resolved, if a future were awarded to him, it should make amends 
for the days gone by ; and surely, as the mother and son read 
together the beloved assurance of the divine forgiveness, and of 
that joy which angels feel in heaven for a sinner repentant, we 
may fancy in the happy mother’s breast a feeling somewhat akin 
to that angelic felicity, a gratitude and joy of all others the loftiest, 
the purest, the keenest. Lady Walham might shrink with terror 
at the Frenchman’s name, but her son could forgive him, with 
all his heart, and kiss his mother’s hand, and thank him as the 
best friend of his life. 

During all the days of his illness, Kew had never once men- 
tioned Ethel’s name, and once or twice as his recovery progressed, 
when with doubt and tremor his mother alluded to it, he turned 
from the subject as one that was disagreeable and painful. Had 
she thought seriously on certain things'? Lady Walham asked. 
Kew thought not; “but those who are bred up as you would 
have them, mother, are often none the better,” the humble young 
fellow said. “I believe she is a very good girl. She is very 
clever, she is exceedingly handsome, she is very good to her parents 

and her brothers and sisters; but ” he did not finish the 

sentence. Perhaps he thought, as he told Ethel afterwards, that 
she would have agreed with Lady Walham even worse than with 
her imperious old grandmother. 

Lady Walham then fell to deplore Sir Brian’s condition, 
accounts of whose seizure, of course, had been despatched to the 
Kehl party, and to lament that a worldly man as he was should 
have such an affliction, so near the grave, and so little prepared for 
it. Here honest Kew, however, held out. “ Every man for him- 
self, mother,” says he. “ Sir Brian was bred up very strictly, 
perhaps too strictly as a young man. Don’t you know that that 
good Colonel, his elder brother, who seems to me about the most 
honest and good old gentleman I ever met in my life, was driven 
into rebellion and all sorts of wild courses by old Mrs. Newcome’s 
tyranny over him? As for Sir Brian, he goes to church every 
Sunday : has prayers in the family every day : I’m sure has led 


THE NEWCOMES 


396 

a hundred times better life than I have, poor old Sir Brian. I 
often have thought, mother, that though our side was wrong, 
yours could not be altogether right, because I remember how my 
tutor, and Mr. Bonner, and Dr. Laud, when they used to come 
down to us at Kewbury, ur,ed to make themselves so unhappy 
about other people.” So the widow withdrew her unhappiness 
about Sir Brian ; she was quite glad to hope for the best regarding 
that invalid 

With some fears yet regarding her son, — for many of the books 
with which the good lady travelled could not be got to interest 
him ; at some he would laugh outright, — with fear mixed with 
the maternal joy that he was returned to her, and had quitted his 
old ways ; with keen feminine triumph, perhaps, that she had 
won him back, and happiness at his daily mending health, all Lady 
Walham’s hours were passed in thankful and delighted occupation. 
George Barnes kept the Newcomes acquainted with the state of 
his brother’s health. The skilful surgeon from Strasbourg reported 
daily better and better of him, and the little family were living in 
great peace and contentment, with one subject of dread, however, 
hanging over the mother of the two young men, the arrival of 
Lady Kew, the fierce old mother-in-law, who had worsted Lady 
Walham in many a previous battle. 

It was what they call the summer of St. Martin, and the 
weather was luckily very fine; Kew could presently be wheeled 
into the garden of the hotel, whence he could see the broad turbid 
current of the swollen Rhine : the French bank fringed with alders, 
the vast yellow fields behind them, the great avenue of poplars 
stretching away to the Alsatian city, and its purple minster yonder. 
Good Lady Walham was for improving the shining hour by reading 
amusing extracts from her favourite volumes, gentle anecdotes of 
Chinese and Hottentot converts, and incidents from missionary 
travel. George Barnes, a wily young diplomatist, insinuated Galig- 
nani , and hinted that Kew might like a novel; and a profane 
work called “ Oliver Twist ” having appeared about this time, which 
George read out to his family with admirable emphasis, it is a 
fact that Lady Walham became so interested in the parish boy’s 
progress, that she took his history into her bedroom (where it was 
discovered, under Blatherwick’s “Voice from Mesopotamia,” by 
her Ladyship’s maid), and that Kew laughed so immensely at Mr. 
Bumble, the Beadle, as to endanger the reopening of his wound. 

While, one day, they were so harmlessly and pleasantly occupied, 
a great whacking of whips, blowing of horns, and whirring of wheels 
was heard in the street without. The wheels stopped at their 
hotel gate ; Lady Walham started up ; ran through the garden 


THE NEWCOMES 


397 

door, closing it behind her; and divined justly who had arrived. 
The landlord was bowing ; the courier pushing about ; waiters in 
attendance ; one of them, coming up to pale-faced Lady Walham, 
said, “Her Excellency the Frau Grafinn von Kew is even now 
absteiging.” 

“ Will you be good enough to walk into our salon, Lady Kew 1 ” 
said the daughter-in-law, stepping forward and opening the door of 
that apartment. The Countess, leaning on her staff, entered that 
darkened chamber. She ran up towards an easy-chair, where she 
supposed Lord Kew was. “ My dear Frank ! ” cries the old lady ; 
“ my dear boy, what a pretty fright you have given us all ! They 

don’t keep you in this horrid noisy room facing the Ho — 

what is this 1 ” cries the Countess, closing her sentence abruptly. 

“ It is not Frank. It is cfhly a bolster, Lady Kew : and I 
don’t keep him in a noisy room towards the street,” said Lady 
Walham. 

“Ho! how do you do 1 ? This is the way to him, I suppose;” 
and she went to another door — it was a cupboard full of the relics 
of Frank’s illness, from which Lady Walham’s mother-in-law shrank 
back aghast. “Will you please to see that I have a comfortable 
room, Maria; and one for my maid, next me'? I will thank you 
to see yourself,” the Empress of Kew said, pointing with her stick, 
before which many a time the younger lady had trembled. 

This time Lady Walham only rang the bell. “I don’t speak 
German ; and have never been on any floor of the house but this. 
Your servant had better see to your room, Lady Kew. That next 
is mine ; and I keep the door, which you are trying, locked on the 
other side.” 

“ And I suppose Frank is locked up there ! ” cried the old lady, 
“with a basin of gruel and a book of Watts’s hymns.” A servant 
entered at this moment, answering Lady Walham’s summons. 
“ Peacock, the Countess of Kew says that she proposes to stay here 
this evening. Please to ask the landlord to show her Ladyship 
rooms,” said Lady Walham ; and by this time she had thought of 
a reply to Lady Kew’s last kind speech. 

“If my son were locked up in my room, madam, his mother 
is surely the best nurse for him. Why did you not come to him 
three weeks sooner, when there was nobody with him ? ” 

Lady Kew said nothing, but glared and showed her teeth — 
those pearls set in gold. 

“ And my company may not amuse Lord Kew ” 

“ He — e — e ! ” grinned the elder savagely. 

“ But at least it is better than some to which you introduced 
my son,” continued Lady Kew’s daughter-in-law, gathering force 


398 


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and wrath as she spoke. “Your Ladyship may think lightly of 
me, but you can hardly think so ill of me as of the Duchesse d’lvry, 
I should suppose, to whom you sent my boy, to form him, you 
said ; about whom, when I remonstrated — for though I live out of 
the world I hear of it sometimes — you were pleased to tell me that 
I was a prude and a fool. It is you I thank for separating my 
child from me — yes, you — for so many years of my life ; and for 
bringing me to him when he was bleeding and almost a corpse, but 
that God preserved him to the widow’s prayers ; — and you, you 
were by, and never came near him.” 

“ I— I did not come to see you — or — or — for this kind of scene, 
Lady Walham,” muttered the other. Lady Kew was accustomed 
to triumph, by attacking in masses, like Napoleon. Those who 
faced her routed her. 

“ No ; you did not come for me, I know very well,” the daughter 
went on. “You loved me no better than you loved your son, 
whose life, as long as you meddled with it, you made wretched. 
You came here for my boy. Haven’t you done him evil enough 1 
And now God has mercifully preserved him, you want to lead 
him back again into ruin and crime. It shall not be so, wicked 
woman ! bad mother ! cruel, heartless parent ! — George ! ” (Here 
her younger son entered the room, and she ran towards him with 
fluttering robes and seized his hands.) “ Here is your grandmother ; 
here is the Countess of Kew, come from Baden at last; and she 
wants — she wants to take Frank from us, my dear, and to — give — 
him — back to the — Frenchwoman again. No, no ! 0 my God ! 

Never ! never ! ” And she flung herself into George Barnes’s arms, 
fainting with an hysteric burst of tears. 

“You had best get a strait- waistcoat for your mother, George 
Barnes,” Lady Kew said, scorn and hatred in her face. (If she 
had been Iago’s daughter, with a strong likeness to her sire, Lord 
Steyne’s sister could not have looked more diabolical.) “ Have 
you had advice for her 1 Has nursing poor Kew turned her head 1 
I came to see him. Why have I been left alone for half-an-hour 
with this madwoman 1 You ought not to trust her to give Frank 
medicine. It is positively ” 

“Excuse me,” said George, with a bow; “I don’t think the 
complaint has as yet exhibited itself in my mother’s branch of the 
family.” (“She always hated me,” thought George; “but if she 
had by chance left me a legacy, there it goes.”) “You would like, 
ma’am, to see the rooms upstairs ? Here is the landlord to conduct 
your Ladyship. Frank will be quite ready to receive you when 
you come down. I am sure I need not beg of your kindness that 
nothing may be said to agitate him. It is barely three weeks 


THE NEWCOMES 399 

since M. de Castillonnes’ ball was extracted ; and the doctors wish 
he should be kept as quiet as possible.” 

Be sure that the landlord, the courier, and the persons engaged 
in showing the Countess of Kew the apartments above spent an 
agreeable time with her Excellency the Frau Grafinn von Kew. 
She must have had better luck in her encounter with them than in 
her previous passages with her grandson and his mother ; for when 
she issued from her apartment in a new dress and fresh cap, Lady 
Kew’s face Wore an expression of perfect serenity. Her attendant 
may have shook her fist behind her, and her man’s eyes and face 
looked Blitz and Donnerwetter ; but their mistress’s features wore 
that pleased look which they assumed when she had been satis- 
factorily punishing somebody. Lord Kew had by this time got 
back from the garden to his own room, where he awaited grand- 
mamma. If the mother and her two sons had in the interval 
of Lady Kew’s toilette tried to resume the history of Bumble the 
Beadle, I fear they could not have found it very comical. 

“ Bless me, my dear child ! How well you look ! Many a girl 
would give the world to have such a complexion. There is nothing 
like a mother for a nurse ! Ah no ! Maria, you deserve to be the 
Mother Superior of a House of Sisters of Charity, you do. The 
landlord has given me a delightful apartment, thank you. He 
is an extortionate wretch ; but I have no doubt I shall be very 
comfortable. The Dodsburys stopped here I see by the travellers’ 
book — quite right, instead of sleeping at that odious buggy Stras- 
bourg. We have had a sad sad time, my dears, at Baden. Be- 
tween anxiety about poor Sir Brian, and about you, you naughty 
boy, I am sure I wonder how I have got through it all. Dr. Finck 
would not let me come away to-day ; but I would come.” 

“ I am sure it was uncommonly kind, ma’am,” says poor Kew, 
with a rueful face. 

“ That horrible woman against whom I always warned you — 
but young men will not take the advice of old grandmammas — 
has gone away these ten days. Monsieur le Due fetched her : and 
if he locked her up at Montcontour, and kept her on bread and 
water for the rest of her life, I am sure he would serve her right. 
When a woman once forgets religious principles, Kew, she is sure 
to go wrong. The Conversation Room is shut up. The Dorkings 
go on Tuesday. Clara is really a dear little artless creature ; one 
that you will like, Maria — and as for Ethel, I really think she is 
an angel. To see her nursing her poor father is the most beautiful 
sight ; night after night she has sat up with him. I know where 
she would like to be, the dear child. And if Frank falls ill again, 
Maria, he won’t need a mother or useless old grandmother to nurse 


400 


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him. I have got some pretty messages to deliver from her; but 
they are for your private ears, my Lord ; not even mammas and 
brothers may hear them.” 

“ Do not go, mother ! Pray stay, George ! ” cried the sick man 
(and again Lord Steyne’s sister looked uncommonly like that 
lamented marquis). “My cousin is a noble young creature,” he 
went on. “ She has admirable good qualities, which I appreciate 
with all my heart ; and her beauty, you know how I admire it. I 
have thought of her a great deal as I was lying on the bed yonder ” 
(the family look was not so visible in Lady Kew’s face), “ and — and 
— I wrote to her this very morning; she will have the letter by 
this time, probably.” 

“ Bien, Frank ! ” Lady Kew smiled (in her supernatural way) 
almost as much as her portrait, by Harlowe, as you may see it at 
Kewbury to this very day. She is represented seated before an 
easel, painting a miniature of her son, Lord Walham. 

“ I wrote to her on the subject of the last conversation we had 
together,” Frank resumed, in rather a timid voice, “ the day before 
my accident. Perhaps she did not tell you, ma’am, of what passed 
between us. We had had a quarrel; one of many. Some cowardly 
hand, which we both of us can guess at, had written to her an 
account of my past life, and she showed me the letter. Then I 
told her, that if she loved me she never would have showed it me ; 
without any other words of reproof I bade her farewell. It was 
not much, the showing that letter ; but it was enough. In twenty 
differences we have had together she has been unjust and captious, 
cruel towards me, and too eager, as I thought, for other people’s 
admiration. Had she loved me, it seemed to me Ethel would have 
shown less vanity and better temper. What was I to expect in life 
afterwards from a girl who before her marriage used me so 1 
Neither she nor I could be happy. She could be gentle enough, 
and kind, and anxious to please any man whom she loved, God 
bless her ! As for me, I suppose I’m not worthy of so much talent 
and beauty, so we both understood that that was a friendly fare- 
well ; and as I have been lying on my bed yonder, thinking, 
perhaps, I never might leave it, or if I did, that I should like to 
lead a different sort of life to that which ended in sending me there, 
my resolve of last month was only confirmed. God forbid that she 
and I should lead the lives of some folks we know ; that Ethel 
should marry without love, perhaps to fall into it afterwards ; and 
that I, after this awful warning I have had, should be tempted back 
into that dreary life I was leading. It was wicked, ma’am, I knew 
it was ; many and many a day I used to say so to myself, and 
longed to get rid of it. I am a poor weak devil, I know, I am 


THE NEWCOMES 


401 


only too easily led into temptation, and I should only make matters 
worse if I married a woman who cares for the world more than for 
me, and would not make me happy at home.” 

“ Ethel care for the world ! ” gasped out Lady Kew ; “ a most 
artless, simple, affectionate creature ; my dear Frank, she ” 

He interrupted her, as a blush came rushing over his pale 
face. “Ah!” said he, “if I had been the painter, and young 
Clive had been Lord Kew, which of us do you think she would 
have chosen 1 And she was right. He is a brave, handsome, honest 
young fellow, and is a thousand times cleverer and better than 
I am.” 

“ Not better, dear, thank God,” cried his mother, coming round 
to the other side of his sofa, and seizing her son’s hand. 

“No, I don’t think he is better, Frank,” said the diplomatist, 
walking away to the window, with a choking voice. As for grand- 
mamma, at the end of this little speech and scene, her Ladyship’s 
likeness to her brother, the late revered Lord Steyne, was more 
frightful than ever. 

After a minute’s pause, she rose up on her crooked stick, and 
said, “ I really feel I am unworthy to keep company with so much 
exquisite virtue. It will be enhanced, my Lord, by the thought 
of the pecuniary sacrifice which you are making, for I suppose you 
know that I have been hoarding — yes, and saving, and pinching, — 
denying myself the necessities of life, in order that my grandson 
might one day have enough to support his rank. Go and live and 
starve in your dreary old house, and marry a parson’s daughter, 
and sing psalms with your precious mother ; and I have no doubt 
you and she — she who has thwarted me all through life, and whom 
I hated, — yes, I hated from the moment she took my son from 
me and brought misery into my family — will be all the happier 
when she thinks that she has made a poor, fond, lonely old woman 
more lonely and miserable. If you please, George Barnes, be good 
enough to tell my people that I shall go back to Baden;” and 
waving her children away from her, the old woman tottered out 
of the room on her crutch. 

So the Wicked Fairy drove away disappointed in her chariot 
with the very dragons which had brought her over in the morning, 
and had just had time to get their feed of black bread. I wonder 
whether they were the horses Clive and J. J. and Jack Belsize had 
used when they passed on their road to Switzerland 1 Black Care 
sits behind all sorts of horses, and gives a. trinkgeld to postillions all 
over the map. A thrill of triumph may be permitted to Lady 
Walham after her victory over her mother-in-law. What Christian 
8 2 c 


402 


THE NEWCOMES 


woman does not like to conquer another ; and if that other were 
a mother-in-law, would the victory be less sweet ? Husbands and 
wives both will be pleased that Lady Walham has had the better 
of this bout ; and you, young boys and virgins, when your turn 
comes to be married, you will understand the hidden meaning of 
this passage. George Barnes got “ Oliver Twist ” out, and began 
again to read therein. Miss Nancy and Fagin again were sum- 
moned before this little company to frighten and delight them. I 
dare say even Fagin and Miss Nancy failed with the widow, so 
absorbed was she with the thoughts of the victory which she had 
just won. For the evening service, in which her sons rejoiced her 
fond heart by joining, she lighted on a psalm which was as a Te 
Deum after the battle — the battle of Kehl by Rhine, where Kew’s 
soul, as his mother thought, was- the object of contention between 
the enemies. I have said this book is all about the world, and a 
respectable family dwelling in it. It is not a sermon, except where 
it cannot help itself, and the speaker pursuing the destiny of his 
narrative finds such a homily before him. 0 friend, in your life 
and mine, don’t we light upon such sermons daily — don’t we see at 
home as well as amongst our neighbours that battle betwixt Evil 
and Good 1 Here on one side is Self and Ambition and Advance- 
ment ; and Right and Love on the other. Which shall we let to 
triumph for ourselves ? — which for our children 1 

The young men were sitting smoking the vesper cigar. (Frank 
would do it, and his mother actually lighted his cigar for him now, 
enjoining him straightway after to go to bed.) Kew smoked and 
looked at a star shining above in the heaven. “ Which is that 
star 1 ” he asked : and the accomplished young diplomatist answered 
it was Jupiter. 

“ What a lot of things you know, George ! ” cries the senior, ' 
delighted. “You ought to have been the elder, you ought, by 
Jupiter ! But you have lost your chance this time.” 

“Yes, thank God ! ” says George. 

“And I am going to be all right — and to turn over a new leaf, 
old boy — and paste down the old ones, ehl I wrote to Martins 
this morning to have all my horses sold ; and I’ll never bet again — 
so help me — so help me Jupiter ! I made a vow — a promise to 
myself, you see, that I wouldn’t if I recovered. And I wrote to 
cousin Ethel this morning.— As I thought over the matter yonder, 

I felt quite certain I was right, and that we could never, never pull 
together. Now the Countess is gone, I wonder whether I was 
right — to give up sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest girl in 
London ? ” 

“ Shall I take horses and go after her 1 My mother’s gone to 


THE NEWCOMES 403 

bed, she won’t know,” asked George. “ Sixty thousand is a lot of 
money to lose.” 

Kew laughed. “ If you were to go and tell our grandmother 
that I could not live the night through ; and that you would be 
Lord Kew in the morning, and your son Viscount Walham, I think 
the Countess would make up a match between you and the sixty 
thousand pounds, and the prettiest girl in England : she would, 
by — by Jupiter ! I intend only to swear by the heathen gods now, 
Georgy. — No, I am not sorry I wrote to Ethel. What a fine girl 
she is ! — I don’t mean her beauty merely, but such a noble bred 
one ! And to think that there she is in the market to be knocked 
down to — I say, I was going to call that three-year-old Ethelinda. — 
We must christen her over again for Tattersall’s, Georgy.” 

A knock is heard through an adjoining door, and a maternal 
voice cries, “ It is time to go to bed.” So the brothers part, and, 
let us hope, sleep soundly. 

The Countess of Kew, meanwhile, has returned to Baden ; 
where, though it is midnight when she arrives, and the old lady 
has had two long bootless journeys, you will be grieved to hear that 
she does not sleep a single wink. In the morning she hobbles over to 
the Newcome quarters; and Ethel comes down to her pale and calm. 
How is her father 1 He has had a good night : he is a little better, 
speaks more clearly, has a little more the use of his limbs. 

“ I wish I had had a good night ! ” groans out the Countess. 

“ I thought you were going to Lord Kew, at Kehl 1 ” remarked 
her granddaughter. 

“ I did go, and returned with wretches who would not bring me 
more than five miles an hour ! I dismissed that brutal grinning 
courier ! and I have given warning to that fiend of a maid.” 

“ And Frank is pretty well, grandmamma 1 ” 

“ Well ! He looks as pink as a girl in her first season ! I found 
him, and his brother George, and their mamma. I think Maria 
was hearing them their catechism,” cries the old lady. 

“ N. and M. together ! Very pretty,” says Ethel gravely. 
“George has always been a good boy, and it is quite time for my 
Lord Kew to begin.” 

The elder lady looked at her descendant, but Miss Ethel’s glance 
was impenetrable. “ I suppose you can fancy, my dear, why I 
came back h ” said Lady Kew. 

“ Because you quarrelled with Lady Walham, grandmamma. I 
think I have heard that there used to be differences between you.” 
Miss Newcome was armed for defence and attack; in which cases 
we have said Lady Kew did not care to assault her. 


404 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ My grandson told me that he had written to you,” the 
Countess said. 

“Yes ; and had you waited but half-an-hour yesterday, you 
might have spared me the humiliation of that journey.” 

“ You — the humiliation — Ethel ! ” 

“Yes, me,” Ethel flashed out. “Do you suppose it is none 
to have me bandied about from bidder to bidder, and offered for 
sale to a gentleman who will not buy me h Why have you and 
all my family been so eager to get rid of me ? Why should you 
suppose or desire that Lord Kew should like me % Hasn’t he the 
Opera ; and such friends as Madame la Duchesse d’lvry, to whom 
your Ladyship introduced him in early life 1 He told me so : and 
she was good enough to inform me of the rest. What attractions 
have I in comparison with such women 1 And to this man from 
whom I am parted by good fortune ; to this man who writes to 
remind me that we are separated — your Ladyship must absolutely 
go and entreat him to give me another trial ! It is too much, 
grandmamma. Do please to let me stay where I am ; and 
worry me with no more schemes for my establishment in life. 
Be contented with the happiness which you have secured for Clara 
Pulleyn and Barnes ; and leave me to take care of my poor father. 
Here I know I am doing right. Here, at least, there is no such 
sorrow, and doubt, and shame for me, as my friends have tried 
to make me endure. There is my father’s bell. He likes me to 
be with him at breakfast, and to read his paper to him.” 

“ Stay a little, Ethel,” cried the Countess, with a trembling 
voice. “I am older than your father, and you owe me a little 
obedience, that is, if children do owe any obedience to their parents 
nowadays. I don’t know. I am an old woman — the world perhaps 
has changed since my time ; and it is you who ought to command, 
I dare say, and we to follow. Perhaps I have been wrong all 
through life, and in trying to teach my children to do as I was 
made to do. God knows I have had very little comfort from them : 
whether they did or whether they didn’t. You and Frank I had 
set my heart on ; I loved you out of all my grandchildren — was 
it very unnatural that I should wish to see you together 1 ? For 
that boy I have been saving money these years past. He flies 
back to the arms of his mother, who has been pleased to hate me 
as only such virtuous people can ; who took away my own son from 
me : and now his son — towards whom the only fault I ever com- 
mitted was to spoil him and be too fond of him. Don’t leave me 
too, my child. Let me have something that I can like at my years. 
And I like your pride, Ethel, and your beauty, my dear ; and I am 
not angry with your hard words ; and if I wish to see you in the 


THE NEWCOMES 


405 


place in life which becomes you — do I do wrong 'i No. Silly girl ! 
There — give me the little hand. How hot it is ! Mine is as cold 
as a stone — and shakes, doesn’t it 1 — Eh ! it was a pretty hand once ! 
What did Ann — what did your mother say to Frank’s letter 1 ” 

“ I did not show it to her,” Ethel answered. 

“Let me see it, my dear,” whispered Lady Kew, in a coax- 
ing way. 

“ There it is,” said Ethel, pointing to the fireplace, where there 
lay some torn fragments and ashes of paper. It was the same fire- 
place at which Clive’s sketches had been burned. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 

AMONGST THE PAINTERS 


W HEN Clive Newcome comes to be old, no doubt he will 
remember his Roman days as among the happiest which 
fate ever awarded him. The friendly simplicity of the 
student’s life there, the greatness and splendour of the scenes sur- 
rounding him, the delightful nature of the occupation in which he 
is engaged, the pleasant company of comrades inspired by a like 
pleasure over a similar calling, the labour, the meditation, the holiday 
and the kindly feast afterwards, should make the art-students the 
happiest of youth, did they but know their good fortune. Their 
work is, for the most part, delightfully easy. It does not exercise 
the brain too much, but gently occupies it, and with a subject most 
agreeable to the scholar. The mere poetic flame, or jet of invention, 
needs to be lighted up but very seldom, namely, when the young 
painter is devising his subject, or settling the composition thereof. 
The posing of figures and drapery; the dexterous copying of the 
line ; the artful processes of cross-hatching, of stumping, of laying 
on lights, and what not ; the arrangement of colour, and the pleasing 
operations of glazing and the like, are labours for the most part 
merely manual. These, with the smoking of a proper number of 
pipes, carry the student through his day’s work. If you pass his 
door you will very probably hear him singing at his easel. I should 
like to know what young lawyer, mathematician, or divinity scholar 
can sing over his volumes, and at the same time advance with his 
labour 1 ? In every city where Art is practised there are old gentle- 
men who never touched a pencil in their lives, but find the occupation 
and company of artists so agreeable that they are never out of the 
studios ; follow one generation of painters after another ; sit by with 
perfect contentment while Jack is drawing his pifferaro, or Tom 
designing his cartoon, and years afterwards, when Jack is established 
in Newman Street, and Tom a Royal Academician, shall still be 
found in their rooms, occupied now by fresh painters and pictures, 
telling the youngsters, their successors, what glorious fellows Jack 
and Tom were. A poet must retire to privy places and meditate 
his rhymes in secret ; a painter can practise his trade in the company 


THE NEWCOMES 


407 


of friends. Your splendid chef d’ecole , a Rubens or a Horace Vernet, 
may sit with a secretary reading to him ; a troop of admiring 
scholars watching the master’s hand ; or a company of court ladies 
and gentlemen (to whom he addresses a few kind words now and 
again) looking on admiringly ; whilst the humblest painter, be he 
ever so poor, may have a friend watching at his easel, or a gentle 
wife sitting by with her work in her lap, and with fond smiles, or 
talk, or silence, cheering his labour. 

Amongst all ranks and degrees of painters assembled at Rome, 
Mr. Clive found companions and friends. The cleverest man was 
not the best artist very often : the ablest artist not the best critic 
nor the best companion. Many a man could give no account of the 
faculty within him, but achieved success because he could not help 
it ; and did, in an hour and without effort, that which another could 
not effect with half a life’s labour. There were young sculptors who 
had never read a line of Homer, who took on themselves, neverthe- 
less, to interpret and continue the heroic Greek art. There were 
young painters with the strongest natural taste for low humour, 
comic singing, and Cider-Cellar jollifications, who would imitate 
nothing under Michael Angelo, and whose canvases teemed with 
tremendous allegories of fates, furies, genii of death and battle. 
There were long-haired lads who fancied the sublime lay in the 
Peruginesque manner, and depicted saintly personages with crisp 
draperies, crude colours, and halos of gold-leaf. Our friend marked 
all these practitioners of Art with their various oddities and tastes, 
and was welcomed in the ateliers of all of them, from the grave dons 
and seniors, the senators of the French and English Academy, down 
to the jovial students who railed at the elders over their cheap cups 
at the “ Lepre.” What a gallant, starving, generous, kindly life 
many of them led ! What fun in their grotesque airs, what friend- 
ship and gentleness in their poverty ! How splendidly Carlo talked 
of the marquis his cousin, and the duke his intimate friend ! How 
great Federigo was on the subject of his wrongs from the Academy 
at home, a pack of tradesmen who could not understand high art, 
and who had never seen a good picture ! With what haughtiness 
Augusto swaggered about at Sir John’s soirees, though he was known 
to have borrowed Fernando’s coat and Luigi’s dress-boots ! If one 
or the other was ill, how nobly and generously his companions flocked 
to comfort him, took turns to nurse the sick man through nights of 
fever, contributed out of their slender means to help him through 
his difficulty. Max, who loves fine dresses and the carnival so, gave 
up a costume and a carriage so as to help Paul. Paul, when he 
sold his picture (through the agency of Pietro, with whom he had 
quarrelled, and who recommended him to a patron), gave a third of 


408 


THE NEWCOMES 


the money back to Max, and took another third portion to Lazaro, 
with his poor wife and children, who had not got a single order all 
that winter — and so the story went on. I have heard Clive tell of 
two noble young Americans who came to Europe to study their art ; 
of whom the one fell sick whilst the other supported his penniless 
comrade, and out of sixpence a day absolutely kept but a penny for 
himself, giving the rest to his sick companion. “ I should like to 
have known that good Samaritan, sir,” our Colonel said, twirling his 
mustachios, when we saw him again, and his son told him that story. 

J. J., in his steady silent way, w T orked on every day, and for 
many hours every day. When Clive entered their studio of a 
morning he found J. J. there, and there he left him. When the 
Life Academy was over, at night, and Clive went out to his soirees, 
J. J. lighted his lamp and continued his happy labour. He did 
not care for the brawling supper-parties of his comrades ; liked 
better to stay at home than to go into the world, and was seldom 
abroad of a night except during the illness of Luigi before men- 
tioned, when J. J. spent constant evenings at the other’s bedside. 
J. J. was fortunate as well as skilful : people in the world took a 
liking to the modest young man, and he had more than one order 
for pictures. The Artists’ Club, at the “ Lepre,” set him down as 
close with his money ; but a year after he left Rome, Lazaro and 
his wife, who still remained there, told a different tale. Clive 
Newcome, when he heard of their distress, gave them something — 
as much as he could spare ; but J. J. gave more, and Clive was as 
eager in acknowledging and admiring his friend’s generosity as he 
was in speaking of his genius. His was a fortunate organisation 
indeed. Study was his chief amusement. Self-denial came easily 
to him. Pleasure, or what is generally called so, had little charm 
for him. His ordinary companions were pure and sweet thoughts ; 
his outdoor emjoyment the contemplation of natural beauty ; for 
recreation, the hundred pleasant dexterities and manipulations of his 
craft were ceaselessly interesting to him : he would draw every knot 
in an oak panel, or every leaf in an orange-tree, smiling, and taking 
a gay delight over the simple feats of skill : whenever you found 
him he seemed watchful and serene, his modest virgin-lamp always 
lighted and trim. No gusts of passion extinguished it; no hopeless 
wandering in the darkness afterwards led him astray. Wayfarers 
through the world, we meet now and again with such purity, and 
salute it, and hush whilst it passes on. 

We have it under Clive Newcome’s own signature that he in- 
tended to pass a couple of years in Italy, devoting himself exclusively 
to the study of his profession. Other besides professional reasons 
were working secretly in the young man’s mind, causing him to 


THE NEWCOMES 


409 

think that absence from England was the best cure for a malady 
under which he secretly laboured. But change of air may cure 
some sick people more speedily than the sufferers ever hoped ; and 
also it is on record that young men with the very best intentions 
respecting study do not fulfil them, and are led away from their 
scheme by accident, or pleasure, or necessity, or some good cause. 
Young Clive worked sedulously two or three months at his vocation 
at Borne, secretly devouring, no doubt, the pangs of sentimental 
disappointment under which he laboured; and he drew from his 
models, and he sketched round about everything that suited his 
pencil on both sides of Tiber ; and he laboured at the Life Academy 
of nights — a model himself to other young students. The symptoms 
of his sentimental malady began to abate. He took an interest in 
the affairs of Jack, and Tom, and Harry round about him : Art 
exercised its great healing influence on his wounded spirit, which, 
to be sure, had never given in. The meeting of the painters at the 
“ Caffe Greco,” and at their private houses, was very jovial, pleasant, 
and lively. Clive smoked his pipe, drank his glass of Marsala, 
sang his song, and took part in the general chorus as gaily as the 
jolliest of the boys. He was the cock of the whole painting school, 
the favourite of all ; and to be liked by the people, you may be 
pretty sure that we, for our parts, must like them. 

Then, besides the painters, he had, as he has informed us, the 
other society of Rome. Every winter there is a gay and pleasant 
English colony in that capital, of course more or less remarkable 
for rank, fashion, and agreeability with every varying year. In 
Clive’s year some very pleasant folks set up their winter quarters 
in the usual foreigners’ resort round about the Piazza di Spagna. 
I was amused to find, lately, on looking over the travels of the 
respectable M. de Pollnitz, that, a hundred and twenty years ago, 
the same quarter, the same streets and palaces, scarce changed from 
those days, were even then polite foreigners’ resort. Of one or two 
of the gentlemen, Clive had made the acquaintance in the hunting- 
field ; others he had met during his brief appearance in the London 
world. Being a youth of great personal agility, fitted thereby to 
the graceful performance of polkas, &c. ; having good manners, 
and good looks, and good credit with Prince Polonia, or some other 
banker, Mr. Newcome was thus made very welcome to the Anglo- 
Roman society; and as kindly received in genteel houses, where 
they drank tea and danced the galop, as in those dusky taverns 
and retired lodgings where his bearded comrades, the painters, held 
their meetings. 

Thrown together every day, and night after night ; flocking to 
the same picture-galleries, statue-galleries, Pincian drives, and church 


410 


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functions, the English colonists at Rome perforce become intimate, 
and in many cases friendly. They have an English library where 
the various meets for the week are placarded : on such a day the 
Vatican galleries are open ; the next is the feast of Saint So-and-so ; 
on Wednesday there will be music and Vespers at the Sistine 
Chapel; on Thursday the Pope will bless the animals — sheep, 
horses, and what not : and flocks of English accordingly rush to 
witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the 
ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with 
their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged 
for English diversion; and we run in a crowd to high mass at 
St. Peter’s, or to the illumination on Easter-day, as we run when 
the bell rings to the Bosjesmen at Cremorne, or the fireworks at 
Vauxhall. 

Running to see fireworks alone, rushing off to examine Bosjesmen 
by one’s self, is dreary work ! I should think very few men would 
have the courage to do it unattended, and personally would not 
prefer a pipe in their own rooms. Hence if Clive went to see all 
these sights, as he did, it is to be concluded that he went in company, 
and if he went in company and sought it, we may suppose that little 
affair which annoyed him at Baden no longer tended to hurt his peace 
of mind very seriously. The truth is, our countrymen are pleasanter 
abroad than at home; most hospitable, kindly, and eager to be pleased 
and to please. You see a family half-a-dozen times in a week in the 
little Roman circle, whom you shall not meet twice in a season after- 
wards in the enormous London round. When Easter is over and 
everybody is going away at Rome, you and your neighbour shake 
hands, sincerely sorry to part : in London we are obliged to dilute 
our kindness so that there is hardly any smack of the original milk. 
As one by one the pleasant families dropped off with whom Clive had 
spent his happy winter; as Admiral Freeman’s carriage drove away, 
whose pretty girls he caught at St. Peter’s kissing St. Peter’s toe; as 
Dick Denby’s family ark appeared with all Denby’s sweet young chil- 
dren kissing farewells to him out of window; as those three charming 
Miss Balliols with whom he had that glorious day in the Catacombs ; 
as friend after friend quitted the great city with kind greetings, 
warm pressures of the hand, and hopes of meeting in a yet greater 
city on the banks of the Thames, young Clive felt a depression 
of spirit. Rome was Rome, but it was pleasanter to see it in 
company ; our painters are smoking still at the “ Caffk Greco,” but 
a society all smoke and all painters did not suit him. If Mr. Clive 
is not a Michael Angelo or a Beethoven, if his genius is not gloomy, 
solitary, gigantic, shining alone, like a lighthouse, a storm round 
about him, and breakers dashing at his feet, I cannot help myself ; 


THE NEWCOMES 


41 ! 


he is as Heaven made him, brave, honest, gay, and friendly, and 
persons of a gloomy turn must not look to him as a hero. 

So Clive and his companion worked away with all their hearts 
from November until far into April, when Easter came, and the 
glorious gala with which the Roman Church celebrates that holy 
season. By this time Clive’s books were full of sketches. Ruins 
imperial and mediaeval ; peasants and bagpipemen ; Passionists with 
shaven polls ; Capuchins and the equally hairy frequenters of the 
“Caffh Greco”; painters of all nations who resort there ; Cardinals 
and their queer equipages and attendants ; the Holy Father himself 
(it was Gregory sixteenth of the name) ; the dandified English on 
the Pincio and the wonderful Roman members of the hunt — were 
not all these designed by the young man and admired by his friends 
in after days'? J. J.’s sketches were few, but he had painted two 
beautiful little pictures, and sold them for so good a price that 
Prince Polonia’s people were quite civil to him. He had orders for 
yet more pictures, and having worked very hard, thought himself 
authorised to accompany Mr. Clive upon a pleasure trip to Naples, 
which the latter deemed necessary after his own tremendous labours. 
He for his part had painted no pictures, though he had commenced 
a dozen and turned them to the wall ; but he had sketched, and 
dined, and smoked, and danced, as we have seen. So the little 
britzska was put behind horses again, and our two friends set out 
on their tour, having quite a crowd of brother artists to cheer them, 
who had assembled and had a breakfast for the purpose at that 
comfortable osteria near the Lateran Gate. How the fellows flung 
their hats up, and shouted “Lebe wohl,” and “Adieu,” and “God 
bless you, old boy,” in many languages ! Clive was the young 
swell of the artists of that year, and adored by the whole of the 
jolly company. His sketches were pronounced on all hands to be 
admirable ; it w T as agreed that if he chose he might do anything. 

So with promises of a speedy return they left behind them the 
noble city, which all love who once have seen it, and of which we 
think afterwards ever with the kindness and the regard of home. 
They dashed across the Campagna and over the beautiful hills of 
Albano, and sped through the solemn Pontine Marshes, and stopped 
to roost at Terracina (which was not at all like Fra Diavolo’s 
Terracina at Covent Garden, as J. J. was distressed to remark), 
and so, galloping onwards through a hundred ancient cities that 
crumble on the shores of the beautiful Mediterranean, behold, on 
the second day, as they ascended a hill about noon, Vesuvius came 
in view, its great shape shimmering blue in the distant haze, its 
banner of smoke in the cloudless sky. And about five o’clock in 
the evening (as everybody will who starts from Terracina early and 


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pays the post-boy well) the travellers came to an ancient city walled 
and fortified, with drawbridges over the shining moats. 

“Here is Capua,” says J. J., and Clive burst out laughing; 
thinking of his Capua which he had left — how many months — 
years it seemed ago. From Capua to Naples is a fine straight road, 
and our travellers were landed at the latter place at supper-time ; 
where, if they had quarters at the “Vittoria Hotel,” they were 
as comfortable as any gentlemen painters need wish to be in this 
world. 

The aspect of the place was so charming and delightful to 
Clive : — the beautiful sea stretched before his eyes when waking, 
Capri a fairy island in the distance, in the amethyst rocks of which 
Sirens might be playing ; that fair line of cities skirting the shore 
glittering white along the purple water; over the whole brilliant 
scene Vesuvius rising, with cloudlets playing round its summit, and 
the country bursting out into that glorious vegetation with which 
sumptuous nature decorates every spring; this city and scene of 
Naples were so much to Clive’s liking that I have a letter from him 
dated a couple of days after the young man’s arrival, in which he 
announces his intention of staying there for ever, and gives me an 
invitation to some fine lodgings in a certain palazzo, on which he 
has cast his eye. He is so enraptured with the place, that he says 
to die and be buried there even would be quite a treat, so charming 
is the cemetery where the Neapolitan dead repose. 

The Fates did not, however, ordain that Clive Newcome should 
pass all his life at Naples. His Roman banker presently forwarded 
a few letters to his address ; some which had arrived after his de- 
parture, others which had been lying at the poste restante, with 
his name written in perfectly legible characters, but which the 
authorities of the post, according to their custom, would not see 
when Clive sent for them. 

It was one of these letters which Clive clutched the most 
eagerly. It had been lying since October, actually, at the Roman 
post, though Clive had asked for letters there a hundred times. It 
was that little letter from Ethel, in reply to his own, whereof we 
have made mention in a previous chapter. There was not much 
in the little letter. Nothing, of course, that Virtue or grandmamma 
might not read over the young writer’s shoulder. It was affection- 
ate, simple, rather melancholy ; described in a few words Sir Brian’s 
seizure and present condition ; spoke of Lord Kew, who was mend- 
ing rapidly, as if Clive, of course, was aware of his accident ; of the 
children ; of Clive’s father ; and ended with a hearty “ God bless 
you,” to Clive, from his sincere Ethel. 

“You boast of its being over. You see it is not over ” says 


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413 


Clive’s monitor and companion. “ Else why should you have 
dashed at that letter before all the others, Clive 1 ” J. J. had been 
watching, not without interest, Clive’s blank face as he read the 
young lady’s note. 

“ How do you know who wrote the letter ? ” asks Clive. 

“ I can read the signature in your face,” says the other ; “ and 
I could almost tell the contents of the note. Why have you such 
a telltale face, Clive 1 ” 

“ It is over ; but when a man has once, you know, gone through 
an affair like that,” says Clive, looking very grave, “ he — he’s anxious 
to hear of Alice Gray, and how she’s getting on, you see, my good 
friend.” And he began to shout out as of old — 

“ Her heart it is another’s, she — never — can — be — mine.” 

and to laugh at the end of the song. “Well, well,” says he; “it 
is a very kind note, a very proper little note ; the expressions is 
elegant, J. J., the sentiments is most correct. All the little t’s is 
most properly crossed, and all the little i’s have dots over their 
little heads. It’s a sort of a prize note, don’t you see ? and one such 
as, in the old spelling-book story, the good boy received a plum-cake 
for writing. Perhaps you weren’t educated on the old spelling-book, 
J. J. 1 My good old father taught me to read out of his — I say, I 
think it was a shame to keep the old boy waiting whilst I have 
been giving an audience to this young lady. Dear old father ! ” 
and he apostrophised the letter. “I beg your pardon, sir; Miss 
Newcome requested five minutes’ conversation, and I was obliged, 
from politeness, you know, to receive. There’s nothing between 
us : nothing but what’s most correct, upon my honour and con- 
science.” And he kissed his father’s letter, and calling out again, 
“ Dear old father ! ” proceeded to read as follows : — 

“ ‘ Your letters, my dearest Clive, have been the greatest com- 
fort to me. I seem to hear you as I read them. I can’t but think 
that this, the modern and natural style , is a great progress upon the 
old-fashioned manner of my day, when we used to begin to our 
fathers, “Honoured Father,” or even “Honoured Sir” some 'pre- 
cisians used to write still from Mr. Lord’s Academy, at Tooting, 
where I went before Grey Friars — though I suspect parents were no 
more honoured in those days than nowadays. I know one who had 
rather be trusted than honoured ; and you may call me what you 
please, so as you do that. 

“ ‘ It is not only to me your letters give pleasure. Last week I 
took yours from Baden Baden, No. 3, September 15, into Calcutta, 
and could not help showing it at Government House, where I dined. 


414 


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Your sketch of the old Russian Princess and her little boy, gambling, 
was capital. Colonel Buckmaster, Lord Bagwig’s private secretary, 
knew her, and says it is to a T. And I read out to some of my 
young fellows what you said about play, and how you had given 
it over. I very much fear some of the young rogues are at dice 
and brandy-pawnee before tiffin. What you say of young Ridley, 
I take cum grano. His sketches I thought very agreeable ; but to 

compare them to a certain gentleman's Never mind, I shall 

not try to make him think too well of himself. I kissed dear Ethel’s 
hand in your letter. I write her a long letter by this mail. 

“‘If Paul de Florae in any way resembles his mother, between 
you and him there ought to be a very warm regard. I knew her 
when I was a boy, long before you were born or thought of ; and 
in wandering forty years through the world since, I have seen no 
woman in my eyes so good or so beautiful. Your cousin Ethel 
reminded me of her : as handsome, but not so lovely. Yes, it was 
that pale lady you saw at Paris, with eyes full of care, and hair 
streaked with grey. So it will be the turn of you young folks, 
come eight more lustres , and your heads will be bald like mine, or 
grey like Madame de Florae’s, and bending over the ground where 
we are lying in quiet. I understand from you that young Paul is 
not in very flourishing circumstances. If he still is in need, mind 
and be his banker, and I will be yours. Any child of hers must 
never want when I have a spare guinea. I do not mind telling you, 
sir, that I cared for her more than millions of guineas once ; and 
half broke my heart about her when I went to India, as a young 
chap. So, if any such misfortunes happen to you , consider, my 
boy, you are not the only one. 

“ ‘ Binnie writes me word that he has been ailing. I hope you 
are a good correspondent with him. What made me turn to him 
just after speaking of unlucky love affairs'? Could I be thinking 
about little Rosey Mackenzie ? She is a sweet little lass, and James 
will leave her a pretty piece of money. Verbum sap. I should 
like you to marry ; but God forbid you should marry for a million 
of gold mohurs. 

“ ‘ And gold mohurs bring me to another subject. Do you 
know, I narrowly missed losing half a lakh of rupees which I had 
at an agent’s here 1 And who do you think warned me about him 1 
Our friend Rummun Loll, who has lately been in England, and 
with whom I made the voyage from Southampton. He is a man 
of wonderful tact and observation. I used to think meanly of the 
honesty of natives, and treat them haughtily, as I recollect doing 
this very gentleman at your Uncle Newcome’s in Bryanstone Square. 
He heaped coals of fire on my head by saving my money for me : 


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415 


and I have placed it at interest in his house. If I would but listen 
to him, my capital might be trebled in a year, he says, and the 
interest immensely increased. He enjoys the greatest esteem among 
the moneyed men here; keeps a splendid establishment and house 
here, in Barrackpore ; is princely in his benefactions. He talks to 
me about the establishment of a bank, of which the profits are so 
enormous and the scheme so (seemingly) clear, that I don’t know 
whether I mayn’t be tempted to take a few shares. Nous verrons. 
Several of my friends are longing to have a finger in it ; but be 
sure of this, I shall do nothing rashly and without the very best 
advice. 

“‘I have not been frightened yet by your drafts upon me. 
Draw as many of these as you please. You know I don’t half like 
the other kind of drawing, except as a ddassement: but if you 
chose to be a weaver, like my grandfather, I should not say you 
nay. Don’t stint yourself of money or of honest pleasure. Of what 
good is money, unless we can make those we love happy with it ? 
There would be no need for me to save, if you were to save too. 
So, and as you know as well as I what our means are, in every 
honest way use them. I should like you not to pass the whole of 
next year in Italy, but to come home and pay a visit to honest 
James Binnie. I wonder how the old barrack in Fitzroy Square 
looks without me ? Try and go round by Paris on your way home, 
and pay your visit, and carry your father’s fond remembrances to 
Madame la Comtesse de Florae. I don’t say remember me to 
my brother, as I write Brian by this mail. Adieu, mon fils ! je 
t’embrasse ! — and am always my Clive’s affectionate father, 

u i t H ’” 

“ Isn’t he a noble old trump “? ” That point had been settled 
by the young men any time these three years. And now Mr. J. J. 
remarked that when Clive had read his father’s letter once, then he 
read Ethel’s over again, and put it in his breast-pocket, and was 
very disturbed in mind that day, pishing and pshawing at the statue 
gallery which they went to see at the Museo. 

“ After all,” says Clive, “what rubbish these second-rate statues 
are ! what a great hulking abortion is this brute of a Farnese Her- 
cules ! There’s only one bit in the whole gallery that is worth a 
twopenny piece.” 

It was the beautiful fragment called Psyche. J. J. smiled as 
his comrade spoke in admiration of this statue — in the slim shape, 
in the delicate formation of the neck, in the haughty virginal ex- 
pression, the Psyche is not unlike the Diana of the Louvre — and the 
Diana of the Louvre, we have said, was like a certain young lady. 


416 


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“After all,” continues Clive, looking up at the great knotted 
legs of that clumsy caricatured porter which Glykon the Athenian 
sculptured in bad times of art surely, — “ she could not write other- 
wise than she did — don’t you see ? Her letter is quite kind and 
affectionate. You see she says she shall always hear of me with 
pleasure : hopes I’ll come back soon, and bring some good pictures 
with me, since pictures I will do. She thinks small beer of painters, 
J. J. — well, we don’t think small beer of ourselves, my noble friend. 
I — I suppose it must be over by this time, and I may write to her 
as the Countess of Kew.” The custode of the apartment had seen 
admiration and wonder expressed by hundreds of visitors to his 
marble Giant ; but he had never known Hercules occasion emotion 
before, as in the case of the young stranger who, after staring awhile 
at the statue, dashed his hand across his forehead wi th a groan, and 
walked away from before the graven image of the huge Strongman, 
who had himself been made such a fool by women. 

“My father wants me to go and see James and Madame de 
Florae,” says Clive, as they stride down the street to the Toledo. 

J. J. puts his arm through his companion’s, which is deep in 
the pocket of his velvet paletot. “You must not go home till you 
hear it is over, Clive,” whispers J. J. 

“ Of course not, old boy,” says the other, blowing tobacco out 
of his shaking head. 

Not very long after their arrival, we may be sure they went to 
Pompeii, of which place, as this is not an Italian tour, but a history 
of Clive Newcome, Esquire, and his most respectable family, we 
shall offer to give no description. The young man had read Sir 
Bulwer Lytton’s delightful story, which has become the history of 
Pompeii, before they came thither, and Pliny’s description, apvd 
the “ Guide-Book.” Admiring the wonderful ingenuity with which 
the English writer had illustrated the place by his text, as if the 
houses were so many pictures to which he had appended a story, 
Clive, the wag, who was always indulging his vein for caricature, 
was proposing that they should take the same place, names, people, 
and make a burlesque story : “ What would be a better figure,” 
says he, “than Pliny’s mother, whom the historian describes as 
exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the catastrophe with 
slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her plump person from 
the cinders ! Yes, old Mrs. Pliny shall be my heroine ! ” says 
Clive. A picture of her on a dark-grey paper, and touched up with 
red at the extremities, exists in Clive’s album to the present day. 

As they were laughing, rattling, wondering, mimicking, the 
cicerone attending them with his nasal twaddle, anon pausing and 
silent, yielding to the melancholy pity and wonder which the aspect 


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417 


of that strange sad smiling lonely place inspires : behold they come 
upon another party of English, two young men accompanying a lady. 

“ What, Clive ! ” cries one. 

“ My dear, dear Lord Kew ! ” shouts the other ; and as each 
young man rushes up and grasps the two hands of the other, they 
both begin to blush. . . . 

Lord Kew and his family resided in a neighbouring hotel on 
the Chiaja at Naples, and that very evening, on returning from the 
Pompeian excursion, the two painters were invited to take tea by 
those friendly persons. J. J. excused himself, and sat at home 
drawing all night. Clive went, and passed a pleasant evening ; in 
which all sorts of future tours and pleasure-parties were projected 
by the young men. They were to visit Paestum, Capri, Sicily : 
why not Malta and the East ? asked Lord Kew. 

Lady Walham was alarmed. Had not Kew been in the East 
already ? Clive was surprised and agitated too. Could Kew think 
of going to the East, and making long journeys when he had — he 
had other engagements that would necessitate his return home? 
No, he must not go to the East, Lord Kew’s mother avowed ; Kew 
had promised to stay with her during the summer at Castellamare, 
and Mr. Newcome must come and paint their portraits there — all 
their portraits. She would like to have an entire picture-gallery of 
Kews, if her son would remain at home during the sittings. 

At an early hour Lady Walham retired to rest, exacting Clive’s 
promise to come to Castellamare ; and George Barnes disappeared 
to array himself in an evening costume, and to pay his round of 
visits as became a young diplomatist. This part of diplomatic duty 
does not commence until after the opera at Naples; and society 
begins when the rest of the world has gone to bed. 

Kew and Clive sat till one o’clock in the morning, when the 
latter returned to his hotel. Not one of those fine parties at 
Paestum, Sicily, &c., was carried out. Clive did not go to the 
East at all, and it was J. J. who painted Lord Kew’s portrait that 
summer at Castellamare. The next day Clive went for his passport 
to the embassy; and a steamer departing direct for Marseilles on 
that very afternoon, behold Mr. Newcome was on board of her ; 
Lord Kew and his brother and J. J. waving their hats to him as 
the vessel left the shore. 

Away went the ship, cleaving swiftly through the azure waters ; 
but not swiftly enough for Clive. J. J. went back with a sigh to 
his sketch-book and easels. I suppose the other young disciple of 
Art had heard something which caused him to forsake his sublime 
mistress for one who was much more caprieious and earthly. 

8 2d 


CHAPTER XL 

RETURNS FROM ROME TO PALL MALL 
NE morning in the month of July, when there was actually 



sunshine in Lamb Court, and the two gentlemen who occu- 


v 7 pied the third-floor chambers there in partnership were 
engaged, as their custom was, over their pipes, their manuscripts, 
and their Times newspaper, behold a fresh sunshine burst into 
their room in the person of young Clive, with a bronzed face, and 
a yellow beard and mustachios, and those bright cheerful eyes, the 
sight of which was always so welcome to both of us. “What, 
Clive ! What, the young one ! What, Benjamin ! ” shout Pendennis 
and Warrington. Clive had obtained a very high place indeed in 
the latter’s affections, so much so, that if I could have found it in 
my heart to be jealous of such a generous brave fellow, I might 
have grudged him his share of Warrington’s regard. He blushed 
up with pleasure to see us again. Pidgeon, our boy, introduced 
him with a jubilant countenance; and Flanagan, the laundress, 
came smirking out of the bedroom, eager to get a nod of recogni- 
tion from him, and bestow a smile of welcome upon everybody’s 
favourite, Clive. 

In two minutes an arm-chair full of magazines, slips of copy, 
and books for review, was emptied over the neighbouring coal-scuttle, 
and Clive was in the seat, a cigar in his mouth, as comfortable as 
if he had never been away. When did he come ? Last night. He 
was back in Charlotte Street, at his old lodgings : he had been to 
breakfast in Fitzroy Square that morning; James Binnie chirped 
for joy at seeing him. His father had written to him desiring him 
to come back and see James Binnie ; pretty Miss Rosey was very 
well, thank you; and Mrs. Mack? Wasn’t Mrs. Mackenzie 
delighted to behold him? “Come, sir, on your honour and con- 
science, didn’t the widow give you a kiss on your return ? ” Clive 
sends an uncut number of the Pall Mall Gazette flying across the 
room at the head of the inquirer; but blushes so sweetly, that I 
have very little doubt some such pretty meeting had taken place. 

What a pity it is he had not been here a short while since for 
a marriage in high life, to give away his deal' Barnes, and sign the 


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419 


book, along with the other dignitaries ! We described that ceremony 
to him, and announced the promotion of his friend Florae, now our 
friend also, Director of the Great Anglo-Gallic Railway, the Prince 
de Montcontour. Then Clive told us of his deeds during the winter ; 
of the good fun he had had at Rome, and the jolly fellows he had 
met there. Was he going to astonish the world by some grand 
pictures'? He was not. The more he worked, the more discon- 
tented he was with his performances somehow : but J. J. was 
coming out very strong, J. J. was going to be a stunner. We 
turned with pride and satisfaction to that very number of the 
Pall Mall Gazette which the youth had flung at us, and showed 
him a fine article by F. Bayham, Esquire, in which the picture sent 
home by J. J. was enthusiastically lauded by the great critic. 

So he was back amongst us, and it seemed but yesterday he 
had quitted us. To Londoners everything seems to have happened 
but yesterday ; nobody has time to miss his neighbour who goes 
away. People go to the Cape, or on a campaign, or on a tour 
round the world, or to India, and return with a wife and two or 
three children, and we fancy it was only the other day they left 
us, so engaged is every man in his individual speculations, studies, 
struggles; so selfish does our life make us — selfish, but not ill- 
natured. We are glad to see an old friend, though we do not 
weep when he leaves us. We humbly acknowledge, if fate calls 
us away likewise, that we are no more missed than any other 
atom. 

After talking for a while, Mr. Clive must needs go into the 
City, whither I accompanied him. His interview with Messrs. 
Jolly and Baines, at the house in Fog Court, must have been very 
satisfactory; Clive came out of the parlour with a radiant coun- 
tenance. “Do you want any money, old boy 1 ?” says he; “the 
dear old governor has placed a jolly sum to my account, and Mr. 
Baines has told me how delighted Mrs. Baines and the girls will 
be to see me at dinner. He says my father has made a lucky 
escape out of one house in India, and a famous investment in 
another. Nothing could be more civil ; how uncommonly kind and 
friendly everybody is in London ! Everybody ! ” Then bestowing 
ourselves in a Hansom cab, which had probably just deposited some 
other capitalist in the City, we made for the West End of the 
town, where Mr. Clive had some important business to transact 
with his tailors. He discharged his outstanding little account with 
easy liberality, blushing as he pulled out of his pocket a new cheque- 
book, page 1 of which he bestowed on the delighted artist. From 
Mr. B.’s shop to Mr. Truefitt’s is but a ,step. Our young friend 
was induced to enter the hairdresser’s, and leave behind him a great 


420 


THE NEWCOMES 


portion of the flowing locks and yellow beard which he had brought 
with him from Rome. With his mustachios he could not be induced 
to part ; painters and cavalry officers having a right to those decora- 
tions. And why should not this young fellow wear smart clothes, 
and a smart mustachio, and look handsome, and take his pleasure, 
and bask in his sun when it shone ? Time enough for flannel and 
a fire when the winter comes ; and for grey hair and cork-soled 
boots in the natural decline of years. 

Then we went to pay a visit at a hotel in Jermyn Street to 
our friend Florae, who was now magnificently lodged there. A 
powdered giant lolling in the hall, his buttons emblazoned with 
prodigious coronets, took our cards up to the Prince. As the door 
of an apartment on the first floor opened, we heard a cry as of joy ; 
and that nobleman, in a magnificent Persian dressing-gown, rushing 
from the room, plunged down the stairs and began kissing Clive, 
to the respectful astonishment of the Titan in livery. 

“ Come that I present you, my friends,” our good little French- 
man exclaimed, “to Madame la — to my wife ! ” We entered the 
drawing-room ; a demure little lady, of near sixty years of age, 
was seated there, and we were presented in form to Madame la 
Princesse de Montcontour, nee Higg, of Manchester. She made 
us a stiff little curtsey, but looked not ill-natured; indeed, few 
women could look at Clive Newcome’s gallant figure and brave 
smiling countenance and keep a frown on their own very long. 

“ I have ’eard of you from somebody’s else besides the Prince,” 
said the lady, with rather a blush. “ Your uncle has spoke to me 
hoften about you, Mr. Clive, and about your good father.” 

“C’est son Directeur,” whispers Florae to me. I wondered 
which of the firm of Newcome had taken that office upon him. 

“Now you are come to England,” the lady continued (whose 
Lancashire pronunciation being once indicated, we shall henceforth, 
out of respect to the Princess’s rank, generally pretermit), — “ now 
you are come to England, we hope to see you often. Not here in 
this noisy hotel, which I can’t bear, but in the country. Our 
house is only three miles from Newcome — not such a grand place 
as your uncle’s ; but I hope we shall see you there a great deal, 
and your friend, Mr. Pendennis, if he is passing that way.” The 
invitation to Mr. Pendennis, I am bound to say, was given in terms 
by no means so warm as those in which the Princess’s hospitality 
to Clive was professed. 

“ Shall we meet you at your Huncle ’Obson’s 1 ” the lady con- 
tinued to Clive ; “his wife is a most charming, well-informed 
woman, has been most kind and civil, and we dine there to-day. 
Barnes and his wife is gone to spend the honeymoon at Newcome. 


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421 


Lady Clara is a sweet dear thing, and her pa and ma most affable, 
I am sure. What a pity Sir Brian couldn’t attend the marriage ! 
There was everybody there in London, a’most. Sir Harvey Diggs 
says he is mending very slowly. In life we are in death, Mr. 
Newcome ! Isn’t it sad to think of him, in the midst of all his 
splendour and prosperity, and he so infirm and unable to enjoy 
them ! But let us hope for the best, and that his health will soon 
come round ! ” 

With these and similar remarks, in which poor Florae took 
but a very small share (for he seemed dumb and melancholy in 
the company of the Princess, his elderly spouse), the visit sped 
on ; Mr. Pendennis, to whom very little was said, having leisure 
to make his silent observations upon the person to whom he had 
been just presented. 

As there lay on the table two neat little packages, addressed 
“ The Princess de Montcontour ” ; an envelope to the same address, 
with “The Prescription, No. 9396 ” further inscribed on the paper, 
and a sheet of note-paper bearing cabalistic characters, and the 
signature of that most fashionable physician, Sir Harvey Diggs, I 
was led to believe that the lady of Montcontour was, or fancied 
herself, in a delicate state of health. By the side of the physic 
for the body was medicine for the soul — a number of pretty little 
books in middle-age bindings, in antique type many of them, 
adorned with pictures of the German School, representing demure 
ecclesiastics, with their heads on one side, children in long starched 
nightgowns, virgins bearing lilies, and so forth — from which it 
was to be concluded that the owner of the volumes was not so 
hostile to Koine as she had been at an earlier period of her religious 
life; and that she had migrated (in spirit) from Clapham to 
Knightsbridge, as so many wealthy mercantile families have like- 
wise done in the body. A long strip of embroidery, of the Gothic 
pattern, furthermore betrayed her present inclinations; and the 
person observing these things, whilst nobody was taking any notice 
of him, was amused when the accuracy of his conjectures was 
confirmed by the reappearance of the gigantic footman, calling 
out “Mr. ’Oneyman,” in a loud voice, and preceding that divine 
into the room. 

“ C’est le Directeur. Yenez fumer dans ma chambre, Pen,” 
growled Florae, as Honeyman came sliding over the carpet, his 
elegant smile changing to a blush when he beheld Clive, his 
nephew, seated by the Princess’s side. This, then, was the uncle 
who had spoken about Clive and his father to Madame de Florae. 
Charles seemed in the best condition. He held out two bran- 
new lavender-coloured kid gloves to shake hands with his dear 


422 


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Clive ; Florae and Mr. Pendennis vanished out of the room as 
he appeared, so that no precise account can be given of this 
affecting interview. 

When I quitted the hotel, a brown brougham, with a pair of 
beautiful horses, the harness and panels emblazoned with the 
neatest little ducal coronets you ever saw, and a cipher under 
each crown as easy to read as the arrow-headed inscriptions on 
one of Mr. Layard’s Assyrian chariots, was in waiting, and I 
presumed that Madame la Princesse was about to take an airing. 

Clive had passed the avuncular banking-house in the City, 
without caring to face his relatives there. Mr. Newcome was now 
in sole command, Mr. Barnes being absent at Newcome, the Baronet 
little likely ever to enter bank parlour again. But his bounden 
duty was to wait on the ladies ; and of course, only from duty’s 
sake, he went the very first day and called in Park Lane. 

“ The family was habsent ever since the marriage siinminery 
last week,” the footman, who had accompanied the party to Baden, 
informed Clive, when he opened the door and recognised that 
gentleman. “Sir Brian pretty well, thank you, sir. The family 
was at Brighting. That is, Miss Newcome is in London staying 
with her grandmammar in Queen Street, Mayfear, sir.” The 
varnished doors closed upon Jeames within ; the brazen knockers 
grinned their familiar grin at Clive, and he went down the blank 
steps discomfited. Must it be owned that he went to a club, 
and looked in the “ Directory ” for the number of Lady Kew’s 
house in Queen Street? Her Ladyship had a furnished house 
for the season. No such noble name was to be found among the 
inhabitants of Queen Street. 

Mrs. Hobson was from home ; that is, Thomas had orders not 
to admit strangers on certain days, or before certain hours ; so 
that Aunt Hobson saw Clive without being seen by the young man. 
I cannot say how much he regretted that mischance. His visits of 
propriety were thus all paid, and he went off to dine dutifully with 
James Binnie, after which meal he came to a certain rendezvous 
given to him by some bachelor friends for the evening. 

James Binnie’s eyes lightened up with pleasure on beholding 
his young Clive ; the youth, obedient to his father’s injunction, had 
hastened to Fitzroy Square immediately after taking possession of 
his old lodgings — his, during the time of his absence. The old 
properties and carved cabinets, the picture of his father looking 
melancholy out of the canvas, greeted Clive strangely on the after- 
noon of his arrival. No wonder he was glad to get away from a 
solitude peopled with a number of dismal recollections, to the near 
hospitality of Fitzroy Square and his guardian and friend there. 


THE NEWCOMES 


423 


James had not improved in health during Clive’s ten months’ 
absence. He had never been able to walk well, or take his accus- 
tomed exercise, after his fall. He was no more used to riding than 
the late Mr. Gibbon, whose person James’s somewhat resembled, 
and of whose philosophy our Scottish friend was an admiring scholar. 
The Colonel gone, James would have arguments with Mr. Honey- 
man over their claret, bring down the famous XV th and XVIth 
chapters of the “Decline and Fall” upon him, and quite get the 
better of the clergyman. James, like many other sceptics, was 
very obstinate, and for his part believed that almost all parsons 
had as much belief as the Roman augurs in their ceremonies. Cer- 
tainly, poor Honeyman, in their controversies, gave up one article 
after another, flying from James’s assault; but the battle over, 
Charles Honeyman would pick up these accoutrements which he had 
flung away in his retreat, wipe them dry, and put them on again. 

Lamed by his fall, and obliged to remain much within doors, 
where certain society did not always amuse him, James Binnie 
sought excitement in the pleasures of the table, partaking of them 
the more freely now that his health could afford them the less. 
Clive, the sly rogue, observed a great improvement in the commis- 
sariat since his good father’s time, ate his dinner with thankful 
ness, and made no remarks. Nor did he confide to us for a while 
his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored the good gentleman most severely ; 
that he pined away under her kindnesses ; sneaked off to his study- 
chair and his nap ; was only too glad when some of the widow’s 
friends came, or she went out; seeming to breathe more freely 
when she was gone, and drink his wine more cheerily when rid of 
the intolerable weight of her presence. 

I protest the great ills of life are nothing — the loss of your 
fortune is a mere flea-bite ; the loss of your wife — how many men 
have supported it, and married comfortably afterwards 1 It is not 
what you lose, but what you have daily to bear, that is hard. I 
can fancy nothing more cruel, after a long easy life of bachelorhood, 
than to have to sit day after day with a dull handsome woman 
opposite ; to have to answer her speeches about the weather, house- 
keeping, and what not ; to smile appropriately when she is disposed 
to be lively (that laughing at the jokes is the hardest part), and to 
model your conversation so as to suit her intelligence, knowing that 
a word used out of its downright signification will not be understood 
by your fair breakfast-maker. Women go through this simpering 
and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypo- 
crisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband’s or 
father’s jokes and stories time after time, and would not laugh at 
breakfast* lunch, and dinner, if he told them? Flattery is their 


424 


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nature — to coax, flatter, and sweetly befool some one is every 
woman’s business She is no woman if she declines this office. 
But men are not provided with such powers of humbug or endur- 
ance — they perish and pine away miserably when bored — or they 
shrink off to the club or public-house for comfort. I want to say 
as delicately as I can, and never liking to use rough terms regard- 
ing a handsome woman, that Mrs. Mackenzie, herself being in the 
highest spirits and the best humour, extinguished her half-brother, 
James Binnie, Esquire ; that she was as a malaria to him, poisoning 
his atmosphere, numbing his limbs, destroying his sleep ; that day 
after day as he sat down at breakfast, and she levelled common- 
places at her dearest James, her dearest James became more 
wretched under her. And no one could see what his complaint 
was. He called in the old physicians at the club. He dosed 
himself with poppy, and mandragora, and blue pill — lower and 
lower went poor James’s mercury. If he wanted to move to 
Brighton or Cheltenham, well and good. Whatever were her 
engagements, or whatever pleasures darling Rosey might have in 
store, dear thing ! — at her age, my dear Mrs. Newcome, would not 
one do all to make a young creature happy? — under no circum- 
stances could I think of leaving my poor brother. 

Mrs. Mackenzie thought herself a most highly - principled 
woman; Mrs. Newcome had also a great opinion of her. These 
two ladies had formed a considerable friendship in the past months, 
the captain’s widow having an unaffected reverence for the banker’s 
lady, and thinking her one of the best informed and most superior 
of women in the world. When she had a high opinion of a person 
Mrs. Mack always wisely told it. Mrs. Newcome in her turn 
thought Mrs. Mackenzie a very clever, agreeable, ladylike woman — 
not accomplished, but one could not have everything. “No, no, 
my dear,” says simple Hobson, “never would do to have every 
woman as clever as you are, Maria. Women would have it all 
their own way then.” 

Maria, as her custom was, thanked God for being so virtuous 
and clever, and graciously admitted Mrs. and Miss Mackenzie into 
the circle of adorers of that supreme virtue and talent. Mr. 
Newcome took little Rosey and her mother to some parties. When 
any took place in Bryanstone Square, they were generally allowed 
to come to tea. 

When on the second day of his arrival the dutiful Clive went to 
dine with Mr. James, the ladies, in spite of their raptures at his 
return and delight at seeing him, were going in the evening to his 
aunt. Their talk was about the Princess all dinner-time. The 
Prince and Princess were to dine in Bryanstone Square. The 


THE NEWCOMES 


4-25 


Princess had ordered such and such things at the jeweller’s — the 
Princess would take rank over an English Earl’s daughter — over 
Lady Ann Newcome for instance. “ Oh dear ! I wish the Prince 
and Princess were smothered in the Tower,” growled James Binnie ; 
“since you have got acquainted with ’em I have never heard of 
anything else.” 

Clive, like a wise man, kept his counsel about the Prince and 
Princess, with whom we have seen that he had had the honour of 
an interview that very day. But after dinner Rosey came round 
and whispered to her mamma, and after Rosey ’s whisper mamma 
flung her arms round Rosey’s neck and kissed her, and called her 
a thoughtful darling. “What do you think this creature says, 
Clive'?” says Mrs. Mack, still holding her darling’s little hand. 
“ I wonder I had not thought of it myself.” 

“ What is it, Mrs. Mackenzie 1 ” asks Clive, laughing. 

“She says why should not you come to your aunt’s with us 1 ? 
We are sure Mrs. Newcome would be most happy to see you.” 

Rosey, with a little hand put to mamma’s mouth, said, “ W T hy 
did you tell — you naughty mamma ! Isn’t she a naughty mamma, 
Uncle James'?” More kisses follow after this sally, of which Uncle 
James receives one with perfect complacency : mamma crying out 
as Rosey retires to dress, “ That darling child is always thinking of 
others — always ! ” 

Clive says he will sit and smoke a cheroot with Mr. Binnie, 
if they please. James’s countenance falls. “We have left off that 
sort of thing here, my dear Clive, a long time,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie, 
departing from the dining-room. 

“ But we have improved the claret, Clive, my boy ! ” whispers 
Uncle James. “Let us have another bottle, and we will drink to 
the dear Colonel’s good health and speedy return — Cod bless him ! 
I say, Clive, Tom seems to have had a most fortunate escape out of 
Winter’s house — thanks to our friend Rummun Loll, and to have 
got into a capital good thing with this Bundelcund Bank. They 
speak famously of it at Hanover Square, and I see the Hurkaru 
quotes the shares at a premium already.” 

Clive did not know anything about the Bundelcund Bank, except 
a few words in a letter from his father, which he had found in the 
City this morning. “ And an uncommonly liberal remittance the 
governor has sent me home, sir.” Upon which they fill another 
bumper to the Colonel’s health. 

Mamma and Rosey come and show their pretty pink dresses 
before going to Mrs. Newcome’s, and Clive lights a cigar in the hall 
— and isn’t there a jubilation at the “Haunt” when the young 
fellow’s face appears above the smoke-clouds there 1 


CHAPTER XLI 


AN OLD STORY 


ANY of Clive’s Roman friends were by this time come to 



London, and the young man renewed his acquaintance with 


^ A them, and had speedily a considerable circle of his own. 
He thought fit to allow himself a good horse or two, and appeared 
in the Park among other young dandies. He and Monsieur de 
Montcontour were sworn allies. Lord Fareham, who had pur- 
chased J. J.’s picture, was Clive’s very good friend : Major Pen- 
dennis himself pronounced him to be a young fellow of agreeable 
manners, and very favourably vu (as the Major happened to know) 
in some very good quarters. 

Ere many days Clive had been to Brighton to see Lady Ann and 
Sir Brian, and good Aunt Honeyman, in whose house the Baronet 
was lodged : and I suppose he found out, by some means or other, 
where Lady Kew lived in Mayfair. 

But her Ladyship was not at home, nor was she at home on the 
second day, nor did there come any note from Ethel to her cousin. 
She did not ride in the Park as of old. Clive,' bien vu as he was, 
did not belong to that great world as yet, in which he would be 
pretty sure to meet her every night at one of those parties where 
everybody goes. He read her name in the paper morning after 
morning, as having been present at Lady This’s entertainment and 
Lady That’s ministerial reunion. At first he was too shy to tell 
what the state of the case was, and took nobody into his confidence 
regarding his little tendre. 

There he was riding through Queen Street, Mayfair, attired in 
splendid raiment : never missing the Park ; actually going to places 
of worship in the neighbourhood ; and frequenting the opera — a 
waste of time which one would never have expected in a youth of 
his nurture. At length a certain observer of human nature re- 
marking his state, rightly conjectured that he must be in love, and 
taxed him with the soft impeachment — on which the young man, 
no doubt anxious to open his heart to some one, poured out all that 
story which has before been narrated ; and told how he thought 
his passion cured, and how it was cured ; but when he heard from 


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427 


Kew at Naples that the engagement was over between him and 
Miss Newcome, Clive found his own flame kindle again with new 
ardour. He was wild to see her. He dashed off from Naples 
instantly on receiving the news that she was free. He had been 
ten days in London without getting a glimpse of her. “ That Mrs. 
Mackenzie bothers me so I hardly know where to turn,” said poor 
Clive, “and poor little Rosey is made to write me a note about 
something twice a day. She’s a good dear little thing — little 
Rosey — and I really had thought once of — of — oh, never mind 
that ! 0 Pen ! I’m up another tree now ! and a poor miserable 

young beggar I am ! ” In fact, Mr. Pendennis was installed as 
confidant, vice J. J. — absent on leave. 

This is a part which, especially for a few days, the present 
biographer has always liked well enough. For a while at least, I 
think almost every man or woman is interesting when in love. If 
you know of two or three such affairs going on in any soiree to 
which you may be invited — is not the party straightway amusing 1 
Yonder goes Augustus Tomkins, working his way through the rooms 
to that far corner where demure Miss Hopkins is seated, to whom 
the stupid grinning Bumpkins thinks he is making himself agreeable. 
Yonder sits Miss Fanny distraite , and yet trying to smile as the 
captain is talking his folly, the parson his glib compliments. And 
see, her face lights up all of a sudden : her eyes beam with delight 
at the captain’s stories, and at that delightful young clergyman 
likewise. It is because Augustus has appeared ; their eyes only 
meet for one semi-second, but that is enough for Miss Fanny. Go 
on, captain, with your twaddle ! — Proceed, my reverend friend, 
with your smirking commonplaces ! In the last two minutes the 
world has changed for Miss Fanny. That moment has come for 
which she has been fidgeting and longing and scheming all day ! 
How different an interest, I say, has a meeting of people for a 
philosopher who knows of a few such little secrets, to that which 
your vulgar looker-on feels, who comes but to eat the ices, and 
stare at the ladies’ dresses and beauty ! There are two frames of 
mind under which London society is bearable to a man — to be an 
actor in one of those sentimental performances above hinted at ; or 
to be a spectator and watch it. But as for the mere dessus des 
cartes — would not an arm-chair and the dullest of books be better 
than that dull game ? 

So I not only became Clive’s confidant in this affair, but took a 
pleasure in extracting the young fellow’s secrets from him, or rather 
in encouraging him to pour them forth. Thus was the great part 
of the previous tale revealed to me : thus Jack Belsize’s misad- 
ventures, of the first part of which we had only heard in London 


428 


THE NEWCOMES 


(whither he returned presently to be reconciled to his father, after 
his elder brother’s death). Thus my Lord Kew’s secret history 
came into my possession ; let us hope for the public’s future delec- 
tation, and the chronicler’s private advantage. And many a night 
until daylight did appear, has poor Clive stamped his chamber or 
my own, pouring his story out to me, his griefs and raptures ; re- 
calling, in his wild young way, recollections of Ethel’s sayings and 
doings ; uttering descriptions of her beauty ; and raging against the 
cruelty which she exhibited towards him. 

As soon as the new confidant heard the name of the young 
lover’s charmer, to do Mr. Pendennis justice, he endeavoured to 
fling as much cold water upon Clive’s flame as a small private engine 
could pour on such a conflagration. “Miss Newcome ! my dear 
Clive,” says the confidant, “do you know to what you are aspiring? 
For the last three months Miss Newcome has been the greatest 
lioness in London : the reigning beauty : the winning horse : the 
first favourite out of the whole Belgravian harem. No young 
woman of this year has come near her : those of past seasons she 
has distanced, and utterly put to shame. Miss Blackcap, Lady 
Blanche Blackcap’s daughter, was (as perhaps you are not aware) 
considered by her mamma the great beauty of last season ; and it 
was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis of Farm tosh 
to leave town without offering to change Miss Blackcap’s name. 
Heaven bless you ! this year Farintosh will not look at Miss 
Blackcap ! He finds people at home when (ha ! I see you wince, 
my suffering innocent !) — when he calls in Queen Street ; yes, and 
Lady Kew, who is one of the cleverest women in England, will 
listen for hours to Lord Farintosh’s conversation, than whom the 
Rotten Row of Hyde Park cannot show a greater booby. Miss 
Blackcap may retire, like Jephthah’s daughter, for all Farintosh 
will relieve her. Then, my dear fellow, there were, as possibly 
you do not know, Lady Hermengilde and Lady Yseult, Lady 
Rackstraw’s lovely twins, whose appearance created such a sensa- 
tion at Lady Hautbois’ first — was it her first or was it her second ? 
— yes, it was her second — breakfast. Whom weren’t they going to 
marry ? Crackthorpe was mad, they said, about both. Bustington, 
Sir John Fobsby, the young Baronet with the immense Northern 
property — the Bishop of Windsor was actually said to be smitten 

with one of them, but did not like to offer, as her present M y, 

like Qu — n El-z-b-th of gracious memory, is said to object to 
bishops, as bishops, marrying. Where is Bustington? Where is 
Crackthorpe? Where is Fobsby, the young Baronet of the North? 
My dear fellow, when those two girls come into a room now, they 
make no more sensation than you or I. Miss Newcome has carried 


THE NEWCOMES 


429 

their admirers away from them : Fobsby has actually, it is said, 
proposed for her : and the real reason of that affair between Lord 
Bustington and Captain Crackthorpe of the Royal Horse Guards 
Green, was a speech of Bustington’s, hinting that Miss Newcome 
had not behaved well in throwing Lord Kew over. Don’t you 
know what old Lady Kew will do with this girl, Clive ? She will 
marry Miss Newcome to the best man. If a richer and better 
parti than Lord Farintosh presents himself — then it will be 
Farintosh’s turn to find that Lady Kew is not at home. Is there 
any young man in the Peerage unmarried and richer than Farintosh ? 
I forget. Why does not some one publish a list of the young 
male nobility and baronetage, their names, weights, and probable 
fortunes? I don’t mean for the matrons of Mayfair — they have 
the list by heart and study it in secret — but for young men in the 
world : so that they may know what their chances are, and who 
naturally has the pull over them. Let me see — there is young Lord 
Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, and is desirable because you 
know his father is locked up — but he is only ten years old — no — 
they can scarcely bring him forward as Farintosh s rival. 

“You look astonished, my poor boy ? You think it is wicked 
in me to talk in this brutal way about bargain and sale ; and say 
that your heart’s darling is, at this minute, being paced up and 
down the Mayfair market to be taken away by the best bidder. 
Can you count purses with Sultan Farintosh? Can you compete 
even with Sir John Fobsby of the North? What I say is wicked 
and worldly, is it ? So it is : but it is true, as true as Tattersall’s 
— as true as Circassia or Virginia. Don’t you know that the 
Circassian girls are proud of their bringing up, and take rank 
according to the prices which they fetch? And you go and buy 
yourself some new clothes, and’ a fifty-pound horse, and put a penny 
rose in your button-hole, and ride past her window, and think to 
win this prize ? 0 you idiot ! A penny rosebud ! Put money 

in your purse. A fifty-pound hack when a butcher rides as good a 
one ! — Put money in your purse. A brave young heart, all courage 
and love and honour ! Put money in thy purse — t’other coin don’t 
pass in the market — at least where old Lady Kew has the stall.” 

By these remonstrances, playful though serious, Clive’s adviser 
sought to teach him wisdom about his love-affair; and the advice 
was received as advice upon those occasions usually is. 

After calling thrice, and writing to Miss Newcome, there came 
a little note from that young lady, saying, “Dear Clive, — We were 
so sorry we were out when you called. We shall be at home to- 
morrow at lunch, when Lady Kew hopes you will come, and see 
yours ever, E. N.” 


430 


THE NEWCOMES 


Clive went — poor Clive ! He had the satisfaction of shaking 
Ethel’s hand, and a finger of Lady Kew ; of eating a mutton-chop 
in Ethel’s presence; of conversing about the state of art at Rome 
with Lady Kew, and describing the last works of Gibson and 
Macdonald. The visit lasted but for half-an-hour. Not for one 
minute was Clive allowed to see Ethel alone. At three o’clock 
Lady Kew’s carriage was announced, and our young gentleman rose 
to take his leave, and had the pleasure of seeing the most noble 
peer, Marquis of Farintosh and Earl of Rossmont, descend from his 
Lordship’s brougham and enter at Lady Kew’s door, followed by 
a domestic bearing a small stack of flowers from Covent Garden. 

It befell that the good-natured Lady Fareham had a ball in 
these days ; and meeting Clive in the Park, her lord invited him 
to the entertainment. Mr. Pendennis had also the honour of a 
card. Accordingly Clive took me up at Bays’s, and we proceeded 
to the ball together. 

The lady of the house, smiling upon all her guests, welcomed 
with particular kindness her young friend from Rome. “ Are you 
related to the Miss Newcome, Lady Ann Newcome’s daughter 1 ? 
Her cousin'? She will be here to-night.” Very likely Lady Fare- 
ham did not see Clive wince and blush at this announcement, her 
Ladyship having to occupy herself with a thousand other people. 
Clive found a dozen of his Roman friends in the room, ladies young 
and middle-aged, plain and handsome, all glad to see his kind face. 
The house was splendid : the ladies magnificently dressed ; the ball 
beautiful, though it appeared a little dull until that event took 
place whereof we treated a few pages back (in the allegory of Mr. 
Tomkins and Miss Hopkins), and Lady Kew and her granddaughter 
made their appearance. 

The old woman, who began to look more and more like the 
wicked fairy of the stories, who is not invited to the Princess’s 
Christening Feast, had this advantage over her likeness, that she 
was invited everywhere; though how she, at her age, could fly 
about to so many parties, unless she was a fairy, no one could say. 
Behind the fairy, up the marble stairs, came the most noble Farin- 
tosh, with that vacuous leer which distinguishes his Lordship. 
Ethel seemed to be carrying the stack of flowers which the Marquis 
had sent to her. The noble Bustington (Viscount Bustington, I 
need scarcely tell the reader, is the heir of the house of Podbury), 
the Baronet of the North, the gallant Crackthorpe, the first men in 
town, in a word, gathered round the young beauty, forming her 
court ; and little Dick Hitchin, who goes everywhere, you may be 
sure was near her with a compliment and a smile. Ere this arrival, 
the twins had been giving themselves great airs in the room — 


THE NEWCOMES 


431 


the poor twins ! when Ethel appeared they sank into shuddering 
insignificance, and had to put up with the conversation and atten- 
tions of second-rate men, belonging to second-rate clubs, in heavy 
dragoon regiments. One of them actually waltzed with a dancing 
barrister ; but he was related to a duke, and it was expected the 
Lord Chancellor would give him something very good. 

Before he saw Ethel, Clive vowed he was aware of her. Indeed, 
had not Lady Fareham told him Miss Newcome was coming 1 
Ethel, on the contrary, not expecting him, or not having the 
prescience of love, exhibited signs of surprise when she beheld him, 
her eyebrows arching, her eyes darting looks of pleasure. When 
grandmamma happened to be in another room, she beckoned Clive 
to her, dismissing Crackthorpe and Fobsby, Farintosh and Busting- 
ton, the amorous youth who around her bowed, and summoning Mr. 
Clive up to an audience with the air of a young princess. 

And so she was a princess ; and this the region of her special 
dominion. The wittiest and handsomest, she deserved to reign in 
such a place, by right of merit and by general election. Clive felt 
her superiority, and his own shortcomings ; he came up to her as 
to a superior person. Perhaps she was not sorry to let him see 
how she ordered away grandees and splendid Bustingtons, informing 
them, with a superb manner, that she wished to speak to her cousin 
— that handsome young man with the light mustachio yonder. 

“Do you know many people 1 This is your first appearance 
in society ? Shall I introduce you to some nice girls to dance with ? 
What very pretty buttons ! ” 

“Is that what you wanted to sayT’ asked Clive, rather 
bewildered. 

“ What does one say at a ball ? One talks conversation suited 
to the place. If I were to say to Captain Crackthorpe, ‘What 
pretty buttons ! ’ he would be delighted. But you — you have a 
soul above buttons, I suppose.” 

“ Being, as you say, a stranger in this sort of society, you see 
I am not accustomed to — to the exceeding brilliancy of its conversa- 
tion,” said Clive. 

“ What ! you want to go away, and we haven’t seen each other 
for near a year,” cries Ethel, in quite a natural voice. “Sir John 
Fobsby, I’m very sorry — but do let me off this dance. I have just 
met my cousin, whom I have not seen for a whole year, and I want 
to talk to him.” 

“ It was not my fault that you did not see me sooner. I wrote 
to you that I only got your letter a month ago. You never 
answered the second I wrote you from Rome. Your letter lay there 
at the post ever so long, and was forwarded to me at Naples.” 


432 


THE NEW COMES 


“ Where ? ” asked Ethel. 

“I saw Lord Kew there.” Ethel was smiling with all her 
might, and kissing her hand to the twins, who passed at this 
moment with their mamma. “ Oh, indeed, you saw — how do you 
do ? — Lord Kew.” 

“ And, having seen him, I came over to England,” said Clive. 

Ethel looked at him gravely. “ What am I to understand by 
that, Clive? — You came over because it was very hot at Naples, 
and because you wanted to see your friends here, n’est-ce pas ? How 
glad mamma was to see you ! You know she loves you as if you 
were her own son.” 

“ What, as much as that angel Barnes ! ” cries Clive bitterly. 
“ Impossible ! ” 

Ethel looked once more. Her present mood and desire was to 
treat Clive as a chit, as a young fellow without consequence — a 
thirteenth younger brother. But in his looks and behaviour there 
was that which seemed to say not too many liberties were to be 
taken with him. 

“ Why weren’t you here a month sooner, and you might have 
seen the marriage ? It was a very pretty thing. Everybody was 
there. Clara, and so did Barnes really, looked quite handsome.” 

“ It must have been beautiful,” continued Clive ; “ quite a 
touching sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be 
present because his brother was dead ; and ” 

“And what else, pray, Mr. Newcome?” cries miss, in great 
wrath, her pink nostrils beginning to quiver. “I did not think, 
really, that when we met after so many months, I was to be — 
insulted ; yes, insulted, by the mention of that name.” 

“ I most humbly ask pardon,” said Clive, with a grave bow. 
“ Heaven forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel ! It 
is, as you say, my first appearance in society. I talk about things 
or persons that I should not mention. I should talk about buttons, 
should I ? which you were good enough to tell me was the proper 
subject of conversation. Mayn’t I even speak of connections of 
the family? Mr. Belsize, through this marriage, has the honour 
of being connected with you ; and even I, in a remote degree, may 
boast of a sort of an ever-so-distant cousinship with him. What 
an honour for me ! ” 

“Pray what is the meaning of all this?” cries Miss Ethel, 
surprised, and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He 
had been chafing all the while he talked with her ; smothering 
anger as he saw the young men round about her ; revolting against 
himself for the very humility of his obedience, and angry at the 
eagerness and delight with which he had come at her call. 


THE NEWCOMES 


433 


“ The meaning is, Ethel,” — he broke out, seizing the oppor- 
tunity, — that when a man comes a thousand miles to see you, 
and shake your hand, you should give it him a little more cordially 
than you choose to do to me ; that when a kinsman knocks at your 
door, time after time, you should try and admit him ; and that 
when you meet him you should treat him like an old friend ; not as 
you treated me when my Lady Kew vouchsafed to give me admit- 
tance ; not as you treat these fools that are fribbling round about 
you,” cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and glar- 
ing round on a number of the most innocent young swells ; and 
he continued looking as if he would like to knock a dozen of 
their heads together. “Am I keeping Miss Newcome’s admirers 
from her ? ” 

“ That is not for me to say,” she said, quite gently. He was ; 
but to see him angry did not displease Miss Newcome. 

“ That young man who came for you just now,” Clive went on 
— “that Sir John ” 

“Are you angry with me because I sent him away?” said 
Ethel, putting out a hand. “ Hark ! there is the music. Take 
me in and waltz with me. Don’t you know it is not my door at 
which you knocked % ” she said, looking up into his face as simply 
and kindly as of old. She whirled round the dancing-room with 
him in triumph, the other beauties dwindling before her ; she 
looked more and more beautiful with each rapid move of the waltz, 
her colour heightening and her eyes seeming to brighten. Not till 
the music stopped did she sink down on a seat, panting, and 
smiling radiant — as many many hundred years ago I remember to 
have seen Taglioni, after a conquering pas seul. She nodded a 
“thank you” to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect re- 
conciliation. Lady Kew came in just at the end of the dance, 
scowling when she beheld Ethel’s partner; but in reply to her 
remonstrances Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders, with a look which 
seemed to say je le veux, gave an arm to her grandmother, and 
walked off, saucily protecting her. 

Clive’s friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as 
the scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with 
which the reconciliation had been celebrated. I must tell you that 
this arch young creature had formed the object of my observation 
for some months past, and that I watched her as I have watched a 
beautiful panther at the Zoological Gardens, so bright of eye, so 
sleek of coat, so slim in form, so swift and agile in her spring. 

A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her 
second season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In 
her first year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little 
8 2 E 


434 


THE NEWCOMES 


more reserved and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her 
that first season, to whom Miss Newcome, except for a little occa- 
sional flightiness, was invariably obedient and ready to come to 
call. But when Lady Kew appeared as her duenna, the girl’s 
delight seemed to be to plague the old lady, and she would dance 
with the very youngest sons merely to put grandmamma in a 
passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two hundred 
a year of allowance, besides eighty and an annual rise of five in 
the Treasury), actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, 
and consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, 
whether two hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more 
next year, would be enough for them to keep house on ? Young 
Tandy of the Temple, Lord Skibbereen’s younger son, who sat in 
the House for some time on the Irish Catholic side, was also deeply 
smitten, and many a night in our walks home from the parties at 
tne other end of the town, would entertain me with his admiration 
and passion for her. 

“ If you have such a passion for her, why not propose ? ” it was 
asked of Mr. Tandy. 

“Propose! propose to a Russian Archduchess,” cries young 
Tandy. “She’s beautiful, she’s delightful, she’s witty. I have 
never seen anything like her eyes ; they send me wild — wild,” says 
Tandy — (slapping his waistcoat under Temple Bar) — “ but a more 
audacious little flirt never existed since the days of Cleopatra.” 

With this opinion likewise in my mind, I had been looking on 
during Clive’s proceedings with Miss Ethel — not, I say, without 
admiration of the young lady who was leading him such a dance. 
The waltz over, I congratulated him on his own performance. His 
continental practice had greatly improved him. “ And as for your 
partner, it is delightful to see her,” I went on. “I always like to 
be by when Miss Newcome dances. I had sooner see her than 
anybody since Taglioni. Look at her now, with her neck up, and 
her little foot out, just as she is preparing to start ! Happy Lord 
Bustington ! ” 

“You are angry with her because she cut you,” growls Clive. 
“You know you said she cut you, or forgot you; and your vanity’s 
wounded, that is why you are so satirical.” 

“ How can Miss Newcome remember all the men who are pre- 
sented to her?” says the other. “Last year she talked to me 
because she wanted to know about you. This year she doesn’t 
talk : because I suppose she does not want to know about you 
any more.” 

“ Hang it ! Do— on’t, Pen,” cries Clive, as a schoolboy cries 
out to another not to hit him. 


THE NEWCOMES 


4 35 


“ She does not pretend to observe : and is in full conversation 
with the amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of noble 
thoughts ! But she is observing us talking, and knows that we 
are talking about her. If ever you marry her, Clive, which is 
absurd, I shall lose you for a friend. You will infallibly tell her 
what I think of her : and she will order you to give me up.” Clive 
had gone off in a brown study, as his interlocutor continued. “Yes, 
she is a flirt. She can’t help her nature. She tries to vanquish 
every one who comes near her. She is a little out of breath from 
waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening to poor Bustington, 
who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in order to make 
himself agreeable. With what a pretty air she appears to listen ! 
Her eyes actually seem to brighten.” 

“ What ? ” says Clive, with a start. 

I could not comprehend the meaning of the start : nor did I 
care much to know : supposing that the young man was waking 
up from some lover’s reverie : and the evening sped away, Clive 
not quitting the ball until Miss Newcome and the Countess of Kew 
had departed. No further communication appeared to take place 
between the cousins that evening. I think it was Captain Crack- 
thorpe who gave the young lady an arm into her carriage ; Sir 
John Fobsby having the happiness to conduct the old Countess, 
and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, &c., on which 
her Ladyship’s coronet and initials are emblazoned. Clive may 
have made a movement as if to step forward, "but a single finger 
from Miss Newcome warned him back. 

Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engage- 
ment for the next Saturday to dine at Greenwich ; but on the 
morning of that day there came a note from him to say that he 
thought of going down to see his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged 
to recall his promise to us. Saturday is a holiday with gentlemen 
of our profession. We had invited F. Bayham, Esquire, and 
promised ourselves a merry evening, and were unwilling to balk 
ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence of our young 
Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an early 
hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before 
dinner. And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, 
Lady Kew’s carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss 
Ethel and her maid stepped out of the brougham. 

When Miss Newcome and her maid entered the Brighton 
station, did Mr. Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen 
also to be there 1 ? What more natural and dutiful than that he 
should go and see his aunt, Miss Honeyman'? What more proper 


436 


THE NEWCOMES 


than that Miss Ethel should pass the Saturday and Sunday with 
her sick father; and take a couple of wholesome nights’ rest 
after those five weary past evenings, for each of which we may 
reckon a couple of soirees and a ball? And that relations should 
travel together, the young lady being protected by her femme-de- 
chambre ; that surely, as every one must allow, was perfectly right 
and proper. 

That a biographer should profess to know everything which 
passes, even in a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between 
two lovers, seems perfectly absurd ; not that grave historians do 
not pretend to the same wonderful degree of knowledge — reporting 
meetings the most occult of conspirators ; private interviews between 
monarchs and their ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives 
of those personages, which possibly the persons themselves did not 
know. All for which the present writer will pledge his known 
character for veracity is, that on a certain day certain parties had 
a conversation, of which the upshot was so and so. He guesses, 
of course, at a great deal of what took place; knowing the char- 
acters, and being informed at some time of their meeting. You 
do not suppose that I bribed the femme-de-chambre , or that those 
two City gents, who sat in the same carriage with our young 
friends, and could not hear a word they said, reported their talk 
to me ? J If Clive and Ethel had had a coup4 to themselves, I 
would yet boldly tell what took place, but the coup£ was taken 
by other three young City gents, who smoked the whole way. 

“Well, then,” the bonnet begins close up to the hat, “tell me, 
sir, is it true that you were ‘so very much epris of the Miss 
Freemans at Rome ; and that afterwards you were so wonderfully 
attentive to the third Miss Balliol ? Did you draw her portrait ? 
You know you drew her portrait. You painters always pretend 
to admire girls with auburn hair, because Titian and Raphael 
painted it. Has the Fornarina red hair 1 Why, we are at Croydon, 
I declare ! ” 

“The Fornarina” — the hat replies to the bonnet, “if that 
picture at the Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her 
— is not a handsome woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and 
altogether a most mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in 
fact, I think that very likely it is the real woman ; for it is with 
their own fancies that men fall in love, — or rather every woman is 
handsome to the lover. You know how old Helen must have been.” 

“ I don’t know any such thing, or anything about her. Who 
was Helen ? ” asks the bonnet. And indeed she did not know. 

“ It’s a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is 
no use in repeating it,” says Clive. 


THE NEWCOMES 


437 


“You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away 
the conversation from Miss Freeman,” cries the young lady — “ from 
Miss Balliol, I mean.” 

“We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we 
begin to pull to pieces 1 ” says Clive. You see, to be in this carriage 
— to be actually with her — to be looking into those wonderful lucid 
eyes — to see her sweet mouth dimpling, and hear her sweet voice 
ringing with its delicious laughter — to have that hour and a half 
his own, in spite of all the world-dragons, grandmothers, con- 
venances , the future — made the young fellow so happy, filled his 
whole frame and spirit with a delight so keen, that no wonder he 
was gay, and brisk, and lively. 

“ And so you know of my goings on ? ” he asked. Oh me ! 
they were at Reigate by this time ; there was Gatton Park flying 
before them on the wings of the wind. 

“ I know of a number of things,” says the bonnet, nodding with 
ambrosial curls. 

“ And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you ? ” 

“We were in great perplexity. One cannot be always answer- 
ing young gentlemen’s letters. I had considerable doubt about 
answering a note I got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square,” 
says the lady’s chapeau. “No, Clive, we must not write to one 
another,” she continued more gravely, “ or only very, very seldom. 
Nay, my meeting you here to-day is by the merest chance, I am 
sure ; for when I mentioned at Lady Fareham’s the other evening 
that I was going to see papa at Brighton to-day, I never for one 
moment thought of seeing you in the train. But as you are here, 
it can’t be helped; and I may as well tell you that there are 
obstacles.” 

“What, other obstacles?” Clive gasped out. 

“ Nonsense — you silly boy ! — No other obstacles but those which 
always have existed, and must. When we parted — that is, when 
you left us at Baden, you knew it was for the best. You had your 
profession to follow, and could not go on idling about — about a 
family of sick people and children. Every man has his profession, 
and you yours, as you would have it. We are so nearly allied that 
we may — we may like each other like brother and sister almost. I 
don’t know what Barnes would say if he heard me. Wherever you 
and your father are, how can I ever think of you but — but you 
know how ? I always shall, always. There are certain feelings we 
have which I hope never can change ; though, if you please, about 
them I intend never to speak any more. Neither you nor I can 
alter our conditions, but must make the best of them. You shall be 
a fine clever painter ; and I, — who knows what will happen to me 1 


438 


THE NEWCOMES 


I know what is going to happen to-day ; I am going to see papa and 
mamma, and be as happy as I can till Monday morning.” 

“ I know what I wish would happen now,” said Clive, — they 
were going screaming through a tunnel. 

“What?” said the bonnet in the darkness; and the engine was 
roaring so loudly, that he was obliged to put his head quite close 
to say — 

“ I wish the tunnel would fall in and close upon us, or that we 
might travel on for ever and ever.” 

Here there was a great jar of the carriage, and the lady’s-maid, 
and I think Miss Ethel, gave a shriek. The lamp above was so dim 
that the carriage was almost totally dark. No wonder the lady’s- 
maid was frightened ! but the daylight came streaming in, and all 
poor Clive’s wishes of rolling and rolling on for ever were put an 
end to by the implacable sun in a minute. 

Ah, why was it the quick train? Suppose it had been the 
parliamentary train ? — even that too would have come to an end. 
They came and said, “Tickets, please,” and Clive held out the 
three of their party — his, and Ethel’s, and her maid’s. I think for 
such a ride as that he was right to give up Greenwich. Mr. Kuhn 
was in waiting with a carriage for Miss Ethel. She shook hands 
with Clive, returning his pressure. 

“ I may come and see you ? ” he said. 

“ You may come and see mamma — yes.” 

“And where are you staying?” 

“ Bless my soul — they were staying at Miss Honeyman’s ! ” 
Clive burst into a laugh. Why, he was going there too ! Of course 
Aunt Honey man had no room for him, her house being quite full 
with the other Newcomes. 

It was a most curious coincidence their meeting ; but altogether 
Lady Ann thought it was best to say nothing about the circum- 
stance to grandmamma. I myself am puzzled to say which would 
have been the better course to pursue under the circumstances; there 
were so many courses open. As they had gone so far, should they 
go on farther together ? Suppose they were going to the same house 
at Brighton, oughtn’t they to have gone in the same carriage, with 
Kuhn and the maid, of course ? Suppose they met by chance at the 
station, ought they to have travelled in separate carriages ? I ask any 
gentleman and father of a family, when he was immensely smitten 
with his present wife, Mrs. Brown, if he had met her travelling with 
her maid, in the mail, when there was a vacant place, what would 
he himself have done ? 


CHAPTER XLII 

INJURED INNOCENCE 


FROM CLIVE NEWCOME, ESQ., TO LIEUT.-COL. NEWCOME, C.B. 


" Brighton, June 12 , 18 —. 


Y dearest Father, — As the weather was growing very hot 



at Naples, and you wished I should come to England to see 


1 T A Mr. Binnie, I came accordingly, and have been here three 
weeks, and write to you from Aunt Honeyman’s parlour at Brighton, 
where you ate your last dinner before embarking for India. I found 
your splendid remittance on calling in Fog Court, and have invested 
a part of the sum in a good horse to ride, upon which I take my 
diversion with other young dandies in the Park. Florae is in 
England, but he has no need of your kindness. Only think ! he 
is Prince de Montcontour now, the second title of the Due d’lvry’s 
family ; and M. le Comte de Florae is Due dTvry in consequence of 
the demise of t’other old gentleman. I believe the late duke’s wife 
shortened his life. Oh, what a woman ! She caused a duel between 
Lord Kew and a Frenchman, which has in its turn occasioned all 
sorts of evil and division in families, as you shall hear. 

“In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incom- 
patibility of temper, the match between Kew and E. N. has been 
broken off. I met Lord Kew at Naples with his mother and brother, 
nice quiet people as you would like them. Kew’s wound and subse- 
quent illness have altered him a good deal. He has become much 
more serious than he used to be ; not ludicrously so at all, but he 
says he thinks his past life has been useless and even criminal, and 
he wishes to change it. He has sold his horses, and sown his wild 
oats. He has turned quite a sober quiet gentleman. 

“ At our meeting he told me of what had happened between him 
and Ethel, of whom he spoke most kindly and generously, but avow- 
ing his opinion that they never could have been happy in married 
life. And now I think my dear old father will see that there may 
be another reason besides my desire to see Mr. Binnie, which has 
brought me tumbling back to England again. If need be to speak, 
I never shall have, I hope, any secrets from you. I have not said 


440 


THE NEWCOMES 


much about one which has given me the deuce’s disquiet for ten 
months past, because there was no good in talking about it, or vex- 
ing you needlessly with reports of my griefs and woes. 

“ Well, when we were at Baden in September last, and E. and 
I wrote those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy 
what my feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young 
creature, who has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as 
much as for the good that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten 
indeed, and knowing that she was engaged to Lord Kew, I did as 
you told me you did once when the enemy was too strong for you — 
I ran away. I had a bad time of it for two or three months. At 
Rome, however, I began to take matters more easily, my naturally 
fine appetite returned, and at the end of the season I found myself 
uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss Balliols and the Miss 
Freemans : but when Kew told me at Naples of what had happened, 
there was straightway a fresh eruption in my heart, and I was fool 
enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to catch a 
glimpse of the bright eyes of E. N. 

“ She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst 
the other lets lodgings to her. I have seen her but very seldom in- 
deed since I came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Ann do not 
pass the season, and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week 
with old Lady Kew, who neither loves you nor me. Hearing E. say 
she was coming down to her parents at Brighton, I made so bold 
as to waylay her at the train (though I didn’t tell her that I passed 
three hours in the waiting-room) ; and we made the journey to- 
gether, and she was very kind and beautiful, and though I suppose 
I might just as well ask a Royal Princess to have me, I can’t help 
hoping and longing and hankering after her. And Aunt Honeyman 
must have found out that I am fond of her, for the old lady has 
received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems to be in very 
good condition again. I saw him in full clerical feather at Madame 
de Montcontour’s, a good-natured body who drops her A’s, though 
Florae is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and Warrington, I 
know, would send you their best regards. Pen is conceited, but 
much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham 
is doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way. 

“ Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well ; and Mrs. Mack — well, 
as I know you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won’t 
say a word of Mrs. Mack — but she has taken possession of Uncle 
James, and seems to me to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as 
pretty and good-natured as ever, and has learned two new songs ; 
but you see, with my sentiments in another quarter, I feel as it were 
guilty and awkward in company of Rosey and her mamma. They 


THE NEWCOMES 


441 


have become the very greatest friends with Bryanstone Square, 
and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the most superior 
of women, in which opinion, I dare say, Aunt Hobson concurs. 

“ Good-bye, my dearest father ; my sheet is full ; I wish I could 
put my arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and 
tell you more and more. But you know enough now, and that I 
am your affectionate son always, C. N.” 

In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping 
out of the fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of 
course was very glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a 
little embrace to show her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the 
next day, being Sunday, when Clive, with a most engaging smile 
on his countenance, walked over to breakfast from his hotel, Miss 
Honeyman would scarcely speak to him during the meal, looked out 
at him very haughtily from under her Sunday cap, and received his 
stories about Italy with “ Oh ! ah ! indeed ! ” in a very unkind 
manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done washing 
her china, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation of 
plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen 
shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She 
fluttered up to Clive, I say, and cried out, “ Not in this house, Clive, 
— not in this house, I beg you to understand that ! ” 

Clive, looking amazed, said, “ Certainly not, ma’am ; I never 
did do it in the house, as I know you don’t like it. I was going 
into the Square.” The young man meaning that he was about 
to smoke, and conjecturing that his aunt’s anger applied to that 
practice. 

“You know very well what I mean, sir ! Don’t try to turn me 
off in that highty-tighty way. My dinner to-day is at half-past 
one. You can dine or not as you like,” and the old lady flounced 
out of the room. 

Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit, 
until Miss Honeyman’s servant Hannah entered, who, for her part, 
grinned and looked particularly sly. “ In the name of goodness, 
Hannah, what is the row about ? ” cries Mr. Clive. “ What is my 
aunt scolding at ? What are you grinning at, you old Cheshire cat?” 

“ Git Tong, Master Clive,” says Hannah, patting the cloth. 

“ Get along ! why get along, and where am I to get along to ? ” 

“ Did’ee do ut really now, Master Clive % ” cries Miss Honey- 
man’s attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. “Well, 
she be as pretty a young lady as ever I saw ; and as I told my 
missus, 4 Miss Martha,’ says I, 4 there’s a pair on ’em.’ Though 
missus was mortal angry to be sure. She never could bear it.” 


442 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Bear what ? you old goose ! ” cries Clive, who by these play- 
ful names had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years 
past. 

“ A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other 
in the railway coach,” says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to 
the ceiling, as much as to say, “ There she is ! Lar, she be a pretty 
young creature, that she be ; and so I told Miss Martha.” Thus 
differently had the news which had come to them on the previous 
night affected the old lady and her maid. 

The news was, that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from 
the country, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) 
had announced with giggling delight to Lady Ann’s maid, who was 
taking tea with Mrs. Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel 
a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match. This intelli- 
gence Hannah Hicks took to her mistress, of whose angry behaviour 
to Clive the next morning you may now understand the cause. 

Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He 
swore that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel 
as of embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his 
cousin, walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this 
conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he 
face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance 
of this naughty calumny ? “ Of course Hannah had contradicted 

it ? ” “Of course I have a done no such a thing indeed,” replied 
Master Clive’s old friend ; “of course I have set ’em down a bit ; 
for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled 
between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last 
year, Mrs. Pincott says, ‘ Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,’ she 
says.; ‘Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, Trimmer!’ says she, 
‘ while she has refused to be a Countess,’ she says ; ‘ and can be a 
Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a painter, 
indeed ! ’ Mrs. Pincott says ; ‘ Trimmer, I’m surprised at your irn- 
pidence.’ So, my dear, I got angry at that,” Clive’s champion 
continued, “ and says I, 1 If my young master ain’t good enough 
for any young lady in this world,’ says I, £ I’d like you to show her 
to me : and if his dear father, the Colonel,’ says I, ‘ ain’t as good 
as your old gentleman upstairs,’ says I, ‘ who has gruel and dines 
upon doctor’s stuff, then, Mrs. Pincott,’ says I, ‘ my name isn’t 
what it is,’ says I. Those were my very words, Master Clive, my 
dear ; and then Mrs. Pincott says, ‘ Mrs. Hicks,’ she says, ‘ you 
don’t understand society,’ she says ; ‘ you don’t understand society, 
he ! he ! ’ ” and the country lady, with considerable humour, gave 
an imitation of the town lady’s manner. 

At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed 


THE NEWCOMES 


443 


in her Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere 
shawl and Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-book, 
each stitched in its neat cover of brown silk. “ Don’t stay chatter- 
ing here, you idle woman,” she cried to her attendant with extreme 
asperity. “And you, sir, if you wish to smoke your cigars, you 
had best walk down to the cliff where the Cockneys are ! ” she 
added, glowering at Clive. 

“ Now I understand it all,” Clive said, trying to deprecate her 
anger. “My dear good aunt, it’s a most absurd mistake; upon 
my honour, Miss Ethel is as innocent as you are.” 

“Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, 
Clive ! As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be 
pleased to keep away from it, sir ; and though I don’t approve of 
Sunday travelling, I think the very best thing you can do is to 
put yourself in the train and go back to London.” 

And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will 
see how highly imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway- 
carriages ; and how, though you may not mean the slightest harm 
in the world, a great deal may be attributed to you; and how, 
when you think you are managing your little absurd love-affairs 
ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the servants’-hall are very 
likely talking about them, and you are putting yourself in the 
power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines has rendered 
one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable end is 
answered, and I have written not altogether in vain. 

Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering 
under his aunt’s reproof, and so put out of countenance that he 
had not even thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck 
into his foolish mouth ; when a shout of “ Clive ! Clive ! ” from 
half-a-dozen little voices roused him, and presently as many little 
Newcomes came toddling down the stairs, and this one clung 
round his knees, and that at the skirts of his coat, and another 
took his hand and said, he must come and walk with them on 
the beach. 

So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to 
see his old friend Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children 
he walked to church, and issuing thence greeted Lady Ann and 
Ethel (who had also attended the service) in the most natural 
way in the world. 

While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came 
out of the sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous Agra 
brooch and Cashmere shawl. The good-natured Lady Ann had 
a smile and a kind word for her as for everybody. Clive went 
up to his maternal aunt to offer his arm. “You must give him 


444 


THE NEWCOMES 


up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you please to be so very 
kind. He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel down,” Lady 
Ann said. 

“ Hm ! my Lady,” says Miss Honeyman, perking her head 
up in her collar. Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, 
but a fine blush illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she 
was and looked perfectly unconscious. So, rustling in her stiff 
black silk, Martha Honeyman walked with her nephew silent by 
the shore of the much-sounding sea. The idea of courtship, of 
osculatory processes, of marrying and giving in marriage, made 
this elderly virgin chafe and fume, she never having, at any period 
of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and being angry 
against them, as childless wives will sometimes be angry and testy 
against matrons with their prattle about their nurseries. Now, 
Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of 
sentiment with all her heart, from which I am led to conclude — 
but, pray, is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcomes'? 

All these Newcomes then entered into Miss Honeyman’s house, 
where a number of little knives and forks were laid for them. 
Ethel was cold and thoughtful ; Lady Ann was perfectly good- 
natured as her wont was. Sir Brian came in on the arm of his 
valet presently, wearing that look of extra neatness which invalids 
have, who have just been shaved and combed, and made ready by 
their attendants to receive company. He was voluble : though 
there was a perceptible change in his voice : he talked chiefly of 
matters which had occurred forty years ago, and especially of Clive’s 
own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested the 
young man and Ethel. “He threw me down in a chaise — sad 
chap — always reading Orme’s ‘History of India’ — wanted marry 
Frenchwoman.” He wondered Mrs. Newcome didn’t leave Tom 
anything — “’pon my word, quite s’prise.” The events of to-day, 
the House of Commons, the City, had little interest for him. All 
the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in 
their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. 
He asked Clive (several times) where he had been ; and said he 
himself had had a slight ’tack — vay slight — was getting well ev’y 
day — strong as a horse — go back to Parliament d’rectly. And 
then he became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his 
broth. The man retired, and came back presently, with profound 
bows and gravity, to tell Sir Brian dinner was ready, and he went 
away quite briskly at this news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive 
before he disappeared into the upper apartments. Good-natured 
Lady Ann was as easy about this as about the other events of this 
world. In later days, with what a strange feeling we remember 


THE NEWCOMES 


445 


that last sight we have of the old friend ; that nod of farewell, and 
shake of the hand, that last look of the face and figure as the door 
closes on him, or the coach drives away ! So the roast mutton was 
ready, and all the children dined very heartily. 

The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants 
announced “ the Marquis of Farintosh ” ; and that nobleman made 
his appearance to pay his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Ann. 
He brought the very last news of the very last party in London, 
where “ Really, upon my honour, now, it was quite a stupid party, 
because Miss Newcome wasn’t there. It was now, really.” 

Miss Newcome remarked, if he said so upon his honour, of 
course she was satisfied. 

“ As you weren’t there,” the young nobleman continued, “ the 
Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong ; really they did now, upon 
my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough 
hadn’t even got a new gown on. Lady Ann, you shirk London 
society this year, and we miss you : we expected you to give us 
two or three things this season ; we did now, really. I said to. 
Tufthunt, only yesterday, why has not Lady Ann Newcome given 
anything 1 ? You know Tufthunt? They say he’s a clever fellow, 
and that — but he’s a low little beast, and I hate him.” 

Lady Ann said, Sir Brian’s bad state of health prevented her 
from going out this season, or receiving at home. 

“ It don’t prevent your mother from going out, though,” con- 
tinued my Lord. “Upon my honour, I think unless she got two 
or three things every night, I think she’d die. Lady Kew’s like 
one of those horses, you know, that unless they go they drop.” 

“ Thank you for my mother,” said Lady Ann. 

“ She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever 
so many places. She dined at the Bloxams’, for I was there. Then 
she said she was going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has 
broke her collar-bone (that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her 
grandson, is a brute, and I hope she won’t leave him a shillin’), and 
then she came on to Lady Hawkstone’s, where I heard her say she 
had been at the— at the Flowerdales’, too. People begin to go to 
those Flowerdales. Hanged if I know where they won’t go next. 
Cotton-spinner, wasn’t he ? ” 

“ So were we, my Lord,” says Miss Newcome. 

“ Oh yes, I forgot ! But you’re of an old family — very old 
family.” 

“We can’t help it,” said Miss Ethel archly. Indeed, she 
thought she was. 

“ Do you believe in the barber-surgeon ? ” asked Clive. And 
my Lord looked at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, 


446 THE NEWCOMES 

“ Who the deuce was the barber-surgeon ? and who the devil are 
you 1 ” 

“ Why should we disown our family ? ” Miss Ethel said simply. 
“ In those early days I suppose people did — did all sorts of things, 
and it was not considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to 
William the Conqueror.” 

“Edward the Confessor,” interposed Clive. “And it must be 
true, because I have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon : a friend of 
mine, M‘Collop, did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still.” 

Lady Ann said “ she should be delighted to see it.” Lord 
Farintosh remembered that the M‘Collop had the moor next to his 
in Argyleshire, but did not choose to commit himself with the 
stranger, and preferred looking at his own handsome face and admir- 
ing it in the glass until the last speaker had concluded his remarks. 

As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back 
to a table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farin- 
tosh resumed the delightful talk. “ What infernal bad glasses these 
are in these Brighton lodging-houses ! They make a man look 
quite green, really they do — and there’s nothing green in me, is 
there, Lady Ann 1 ” 

“ But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh ; indeed you do,” 
Miss Newcome said gravely. “ I think late hours, and smoking, 
and going to that horrid Platt’s, where I dare say you go ” 

“ Go ? don’t 1 ? But don’t call it horrid ; really, now, don’t call 
it horrid ! ” cried the noble Marquis. 

“ Well — something has made you look far from well. You know 
how very well Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma — and to see 
him now, in only his second season — oh, it is melancholy ! ” 

“Cod bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I 
think I look pretty well,” and the noble youth passed his hand 
through his hair. “ It is a hard life, I know ; that tearin’ about 
night after night, and sittin’ up till ever so much o’clock ; and then 
all these races, you know, cornin’ one after another — it’s enough to 
knock up any fellow. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Miss Newcome. 
I’ll go down to Codlington, to my mother ; I will, upon my honour, 
and he quiet all July, and then I’ll go to Scotland — and you shall 
see whether I don’t look better next season.” 

“ Do, Lord Farintosh ! ” said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, 
perhaps, at the young Marquis, as at her cousin Clive, who sat 
whilst the other was speaking, fuming with rage, at his table. 
“ What are you doing, Clive ? ” she asks. 

“I was trying to draw, Lord knows who — Lord Newcome, who 
was killed at the Battle of Bosworth,” said the artist, and the girl 
ran to look at the picture. 


THE NEWCOMES 


447 


“ Why, you have made him like Punch,” cries the young lady. 

“ It’s a shame caricaturing one’s own flesh and blood, isn’t it ? ” 
asked Clive gravely. 

“ What a droll, funny picture ! ” exclaims Lady Ann. “ Isn’t 
it capital, Lord Farintosh ? ” 

“ I dare say — I confess I don’t understand that sort of thing,” 
says his Lordship. “Don’t, upon my honour. There’s Odo Carton, 
always making those caricatures — /don’t understand ’em. You’ll 
come up to town to-morrow, won’t you ? And you’re goin’ to Lady 
Hm’s, and to Hm and Hm’s, ain’t you?” (The names of these 
aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible.) “ You mustn’t 
let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know, that you 
mustn’t.” 

“ She won’t have it all her own way,” says Miss Ethel. “ Lord 
Farintosh, will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your 
aunt ? ” 

“ Of course she is my aunt.” 

“ Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on 
Tuesday, for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be 
introduced to the Marquis of Farintosh.” 

The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios 
and their wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit 
to make any sign of recognition. “Anything you wish, Miss 
Newcome,” he said; “delighted, I’m sure;” and turning to Clive 
— “ In the army, I suppose ? ” 

“ I am an artist,” says Clive, turning very red. 

“ Oh, really, I didn’t know,” cries the nobleman ; and my Lord 
bursting out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation 
with Miss Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with 
justice, “ He is making fun of my mustachios. Confound him ; I 
should like to pitch him over into the street.” But this was only 
a kind wish on Mr. Newcome’s part; not followed out by any 
immediate fulfilment. 

As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his 
visit, and his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the 
latter took his departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think 
that he should have Ethel to himself at the evening’s dinner, when 
Lady Ann would be occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure 
to be putting the children to bed, and in a word, would give him 
a quarter of an hour of delightful tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel. 

Clive’s disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at 
length, and found Lord Farintosh likewise invited, and sprawling in 
the drawing-room. His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel 
and Lady Ann and my Lord talked, as all people will, about their 


448 


THE NEWCOMES 


mutual acquaintance : what parties were coming off, who was going 
to marry whom, and so forth. And as the persons about whom 
they conversed were in their own station of life, and belonged to 
the fashionable world, of which Clive had but a slight knowledge, 
he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself airs, and to 
feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue. 

Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough, 
as perhaps the reader has begun to perceive ; but in this instance, 
no harm, sure, was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt 
Honeyman’s parlour had talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and 
Mr. Brown, Clive would not have been angry ; but a young man 
of spirit not- unfrequently mistakes his vanity for independence : 
and it is certain that nothing is more offensive to us of the middle 
class than to hear the names of great folks constantly introduced 
into conversation. 

So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Hannah, 
who had put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal 
eye over him. When he actually refused currant and raspberry 
tart and custard, the chef-d’oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which 
she had seen him absolutely cry in his childhood, the good Hannah 
was alarmed. 

“ Law, Master Clive ! ” she said, “ do’ee eat some. Missis 
made it, you know she did;” and she insisted on bringing back 
the tart to him. 

Lady Ann and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy 
old woman’s part. “ Do’ee eat some, Clive,” says Ethel, imitating 
honest Mrs. Hicks, who had left the room. 

“ It’s doosid good,” remarked Lord Farintosh. 

“Then do’ee eat some more,” said Miss Newcome : on which the 
young nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, 
that the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts. 

“ The cook, dear me, it’s not the cook ! ” cries Miss Ethel. 
“ Don’t you remember the princess in the ‘ Arabian Nights,’ who 
was such a stunner for tarts, Lord Farintosh “? ” 

Lord Farintosh couldn’t say that he did. 

“ Well, I thought not ; but there was a princess in Arabia or 
China or somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards 
that nobody’s could compare with them ; and there is an old lady 
in Brighton who has the same wonderful talent. She is the 
mistress of this house.” 

“And she is my aunt, at your Lordship’s service,” said Mr. 
Clive, with great dignity. 

'* Upon ray honour ! did you make ’em, Lady Ann ? ” asked 
my Lord. 


THE NEWCOMES 449 

“ The Queen of Hearts made tarts ! ” cried out Miss Newcome 
rather eagerly, and blushing somewhat. 

“My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one,” Clive 
would go on to say. 

“Mr. Honey man’s sister, the preacher, you know, where we 
go on Sunday,” Miss Ethel interposed. 

“ The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great import- 
ance,” Lady Ann remarked gently. “ Kuhn, will you have the 
goodness to take away these things? When did you hear of 
Colonel Newcome, Clive?” 

An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over 
Lord Farintosh’s fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry 
had been going on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts 
making tarts, Miss Honeyman ? Who the deuce were all these ? 
Such may have been his Lordship’s doubts and queries. Whatever 
his cogitations were, he did not give utterance to them, but re- 
mained in silence for some time, as did the rest of the little party. 
Clive tried to think he had asserted his independence by showing 
that he was not ashamed of his old aunt ; but the doubt may be 
whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this company, 
and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart 
question alone. 

Ethel evidently thought so ; for she talked and rattled in the 
most lively manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, 
and scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Ann was 
absent with Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the 
time ; and thus Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome 
uttering all sorts of odd little paradoxes, firing the while sly shots 
at Mr. Clive, and, indeed, making fun of his friends, exhibiting 
herself in not the most agreeable light. Her talk only served the 
more to bewilder Lord Farintosh, who did not understand a tithe of 
her allusions ; for heaven, which had endowed the young Marquis 
with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient title and the pride 
belonging to it, had not supplied his Lordship with a great quantity 
of brains, or a very feeling heart. 

Lady Ann came back from the upper regions presently with 
rather a grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this 
evening, upon which the young men rose to depart. My Lord said 
he had had “a most delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, 
’pon his honour,” and was the only one of the little company who 
laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel’s eyes flashed scorn at Mr. 
Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced again. 

My Lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss 
Newcome going back? Wouldn’t he like to go back in the train 
8 2 f 


450 


THE NEWCOMES 


with her ! — another unlucky observation. Lady Ann said, “It would 
depend on the state of Sir Brian’s health the next morning whether 
Ethel would return ; and both of you gentlemen are too young to 
be her escort,” added the kind lady. Then she shook hands with 
Clive, as thinking she had said something too severe for him. 

Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. 
“Pray, pray,” said his Lordship, “don’t throw me over at Lady 
Innishowan’s. You know I hate balls and never go to ’em, except 
when you go. I hate dancing, I do, ’pon my honour.” 

“ Thank you,” said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey. 

“Except with one person — only one person, upon my honour. 
I’ll remember and get the invitation for your friend. And if you 
would but try that mare, I give you my honour I bred her at 
Codlington. She’s a beauty to look at, and as quiet as a lamb.” 

“ I don’t want a horse like a lamb,” replied the young lady. 

“Well — she’ll go like blazes now: and over timber she’s 
splendid now. She is, upon my honour.” 

“ When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out,” said 
Miss Ethel, giving him her hand and a fine smile. 

Clive came up biting his lips. “I suppose you don’t con- 
descend to ride Bhurtpore any more now ? ” he said. 

“ Poor old Bhurtpore ! The children ride him now,” said Miss 
Ethel — giving Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as 
though to see if her shot had hit. Then she added, “ No ; he has 
not been brought up to town this year : he is at Newcome, and I like 
him very much.” Perhaps she thought the shot had struck too deep. 

But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. “You 
have had him these four years — yes, it’s four years since my father 
broke him for you. And you still continue to like him ? What a 
miracle of constancy ! You use him sometimes in the country — when 
you have no better horse — what a compliment to Bhurtpore ! ” 

“Nonsense!” Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most im- 
perious manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed. 

But he did not choose to obey this order: “ Good-night,” he 
said. “ Before I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs.” 
And he was gone, following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare 
say thought, “Why the deuce can’t he shake hands with his aunt 
up here h ” and when Clive entered Miss Honeyman’s back parlour, 
making a bow to the young nobleman, my Lord went away more 
perplexed than ever ; and the next day told friends at White’s what 
uncommonly queer people those Newcomes were. “ I give you my 
honour there was a fellow at Lady Ann’s whom they call Clive, 
who is a painter by trade — his uncle is a preacher — his father is a 
horse-dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner.” 


CHAPTER XLIII 
RETURNS TO SOME OLD FRIENDS 
HE haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, 



on the very next morning, and confided to me the story 


A which has been just here narrated. When he had concluded 
it, with many ejaculations regarding the heroine of the tale, “ I 
saw her, sir,” he added, “walking with the children and Miss 
Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station — and didn’t even 
bow to her.” 

“Why did you go round by the cliff?” asked Clive’s friend. 
“ That is not the way from the ‘ Steyne Arms ’ to the railroad.” 

“ Hang it,” says Clive, turning very red, “ I wanted to pass 
just under her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her : and 
that’s what I did.” 

“Why did she walk on the cliff,” mused Clive’s friend, “at 
that early hour? Not to meet Lord Farm tosh, I should think. 
He never gets up before twelve. It must have been to see you. 
Didn’t you tell her you were going away in the morning ? ” 

“I tell you what she does with me,” continues Mr. Clive. 
“ Sometimes she seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Some- 
times she is quite kind — kind she always is — I mean, you know, 
Pen — you know what I mean ; and then up comes the old Countess, 
or a young Marquis, or some fellow with a handle to his name, and 
she whistles me off till the next convenient opportunity.” 

“Women are like that, my ingenuous youth,” says Clive’s 
counsellor. 

“ / won’t stand it. / won’t be made a fool of ! ” he continues. 
“ She seems to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through 
the world with her imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly hand- 
some she is with them ! I tell you tvhat. I feel inclined to 
tumble down and feel one of her pretty little feet on my neck and 
say, ‘ There ! Trample my life out. Make a slave of me. Let 
me get a silver collar and mark “Ethel” on it, and go through 
the world with my badge.’ ” 

“ And a blue riband for a footman to hold you by ; and a muzzle 
to wear in the dog-days. Bow ! wow ! ” says Mr. Pendennis. 


452 


THE NEWCOMES 


(At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neigh- 
bouring bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. 
“ We are talking sentiment ! Go back till you are wanted ! ” says 
Mr. Pendennis. Exit he of the soap-suds.) 

“Don’t make fun of a fellow,” Clive continues, laughing rue- 
fully. “ You see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die 
if I don’t. Sometimes, sir, I rise up in my might and defy her 
lightning. The sarcastic dodge is the best : I have borrowed that 
from you, Pen, old boy. That puzzles her : that would beat her 
if I could but go on with it. But there comes a tone of her sweet 
voice, a look out of those killing grey eyes, and all my frame is 
in a thrill and a tremble. When she was engaged to Lord Kew 
I did battle with the confounded passion — and I ran away from 
it like an honest man, and the gods rewarded me with ease of 
mind after a while. But now the thing rages worse than ever. 
Last night, I give you my honour, I heard every one of the con- 
founded hours toll, except the last, when I was dreaming of my 
father, and the chambermaid woke me with a hot-water jug.” 

“ Did she scald you 1 What a cruel chambermaid ! I see 
you have shaven the mustacliios off.” 

“ Farintosh asked me whether I was going into the army,” 
said Clive, “ and she laughed. I thought I had best dock them. 
Oh, I would like to cut my head off’ as well as my hair ! ” 

“Have you ever asked her to marry you 1 ?” asked Clive’s 
friend. 

“ I have seen her but five times since my return from abroad,” 
the lad went on; “there has been always somebody by. Who 
am I ? a painter with five hundred a year for an allowance. Isn’t 
she used to walk upon velvet and dine upon silver; and hasn’t 
she got marquises and barons, and all sorts of swells in her train 1 
I daren’t ask her ” 

Here his friend hummed Montrose’s lines — “He either fears 
his fate too much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it 
to the touch, and win or lose it all.” 

“I own I dare not ask her. If she were to refuse me, I 
know I should never ask again. This isn’t the moment, when 
all swelldom is at her feet, for me to come forward and say, 
‘ Maiden, I have watched thee daily, and I think thou lovest me 
well.’ I read that ballad to her at Baden, sir. I drew a picture 
of the Lord of Burleigh wooing the maiden, and asked what she 
would have done.” 

“ Oh, you did ? I thought, when we were at Baden, we were 
so modest that we did not even whisper our condition 1 ” 

“A fellow can’t help letting it be seen and hinting it,” says 


THE NEWCOMES 


453 


Clive, with another blush. “They can read it in our looks fast 
enough ; and what is going on in our minds, hang them ! ‘ I 
recollect,’ she said, in her grave, cool way, ‘ that after all the Lord 
and Lady of Burleigh did not seem to have made a very good 
marriage, and that the lady would have been much happier in 
marrying one of her own degree.’ ” 

“ That was a very prudent saying for a young lady of eighteen,” 
remarks Clive’s friend. 

“Yes; but it was not an unkind one. Say Ethel thought 
— thought what was the case ; and being engaged herself, and 
knowing how friends of mine had provided a very pretty little 
partner for me — she is a dear good little girl, little Rosey ; and 
twice as good, Pen, when her mother is away — knowing this and 
that, I say, suppose Ethel wanted to give me a hint to keep quiet, 
was she not right in the counsel she gave me? She is not fit 
to be a poor man’s wife. Fancy Ethel Newcome going into the 
kitchen and making pies like Aunt Honeyman ! ” 

“ The Circassian beauties don’t sell under so many thousand 
purses,” remarked Mr. Pendennis. “ If there’s a beauty in a well- 
regulated Georgian family, they fatten her ; they feed her with the 
best Racahout des Arabes. They give her silk robes and perfumed 
baths ; have her taught to play on the dulcimer, and dance and 
sing; and when she is quite perfect, send her down to Con- 
stantinople for the Sultan’s inspection. The rest of the family 
never think of grumbling, but eat coarse meat, bathe in the river, 
■wear old clothes, and praise Allah for their sister’s elevation. Bah ! 
Do you suppose the Turkish system doesn’t obtain all the world 
over ? My poor Clive, this article in the Mayfair Market is beyond 
your worship’s price. Some things in this world are made for our 
betters, young man. Let Dives say grace for his dinner, and the 
dogs and Lazarus be thankful for the crumbs. Here comes War- 
rington, shaven and smart as if he was going out a-courting.” 

Thus it will be seen, that in his communication with certain 
friends who approached nearer to his own time of life, Clive was 
much more eloquent and rhapsodical than in the letter which he 
wrote to his father, regarding his passion for Miss Ethel. He 
celebrated her with pencil and pen. He was for ever drawing the 
outline of her head, the solemn eyebrow, the nose (that wondrous 
little nose), descending from the straight forehead, the short upper 
lip, and chin sweeping in a full curve to the neck, &c. &c. &c. A 
frequenter of his studio might see a whole gallery of Ethels there 
represented : when Mrs. Mackenzie visited that place, and remarked 
one face and figure repeated on a hundred canvases and papers, 
grey, white, and brown, I believe she was told that the original 


454 


THE NEWCOMES 


was a famous Roman model, from whom Clive had studied a great 
deal during his residence in Italy ; on which Mrs. Mack gave it as 
her opinion that Clive was a sad wicked young fellow. The widow 
thought rather the better of him for being a sad wicked young 
fellow ; and as for Miss Rosey, she, of course, was of mamma’s way 
of thinking. Rosey went through the world constantly smiling at 
whatever occurred. She was good-humoured through the dreariest 
long evenings at the most stupid parties ; sat good-humouredly for 
hours at Shoolbred’s whilst mamma was making purchases ; heard 
good-humouredly those old old stories of her mother’s day after 
day ; bore an hour’s joking or an hour’s scolding with equal good- 
humour ; and whatever had been the occurrences of her simple day, 
whether there was sunshine or cloudy weather, or flashes of lightning 
and bursts of rain, I fancy Miss Mackenzie slept after them quite 
undisturbedly, and was sure to greet the morrow’s dawn with a 
smile. 

Had Clive become more knowing in his travels, had Love or 
Experience opened his eyes, that they looked so differently now 
upon objects which before used well enough to please them 1 It is 
a fact that, until he went abroad, he thought widow Mackenzie a 
dashing, lively, agreeable woman : he used to receive her stories 
about Cheltenham, the colonies, the balls at Government House, 
the observations which the Bishop made, and the peculiar attention 
of the Chief-Justice to Mrs. Major MacShane, with the Major’s 
uneasy behaviour — all these to hear at one time did Clive not un- 
graciously incline. “ Our friend Mrs. Mack,” the good old Colonel 
used to say, “ is a clever woman of the world, and has seen a great 
deal of company.” That story of Sir Thomas Sadman dropping a 
pocket-handkerchief in his Court at Colombo, which the Queen’s 
Advocate O’Goggarty picked up, and on which Laura MacS. was 
embroidered, whilst the Major was absolutely in the witness-box 
giving evidence against a native servant who had stolen one of his 
cocked-hats — that story always made good Thomas Newcome laugh, 
and Clive used to enjoy it too, and the widow’s mischievous fun in 
narrating it ; and now, behold, one day when Mrs. Mackenzie re- 
counted the anecdote in her best manner to Messrs. Pendennis and 
Warrington, and Frederick Bay ham, who had been invited to meet 
Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square — when Mr. Binnie chuckled, when 
Rosey, as in duty bound, looked discomposed and said, “Law, 
mamma ! ” — not one sign of good-humour, not one ghost of a smile, 
made its apparition on Clive’s dreary face. He painted imaginary 
portraits with a strawberry stalk ; he looked into his water-glass 
as though he would plunge and drown there ; and Bayham had to 
remind him that the claret-jug was anxious to have another embrace 


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455 


from its constant friend, F. B. When Mrs. Mack went away- 
distributing smiles, Clive groaned out, “ Good heavens ! how that 
story does bore me ! ” and lapsed into his former moodiness, not 
giving so much as a glance to Rosey, whose sweet face looked at 
him kindly for a moment, as she followed in the wake of her 
mamma 

“ The mother’s the woman for my money,” I heard F. B. 
whisper to Warrington. “Spendid figure-head, sir — magnificent 
build, sir, from bows to stern — I like ’em of that sort. Thank you 
Mr. Binnie, I will take a back-hander, as Clive don’t seem, to 
drink. The youth, sir, has grown melancholy with his travels ; 
I’m inclined to think some noble Roman has stolen the young man’s 
heart. Why did you not send us over a picture of the charmer, 
Clive? Young Ridley, Mr. Binnie, you will be happy to hear, is 
bidding fair to take a distinguished place in the world of arts. His 
picture has been greatly admired ; and my good friend Mrs. Ridley 
tells me that Lord Todmorden has sent him over an order to paint 
him a couple of pictures at a hundred guineas apiece.” 

“ I should think so. J. J.’s pictures will be worth five times a 
hundred guineas ere five years are over,” says Clive. 

“ In that case it wouldn’t be a bad speculation for our friend 
Sherrick,” remarked F. B., “to purchase a few of the young man’s 
works. I would, only I haven’t the capital to spare. Mine has 
been vested in an Odessa venture, sir, in a large amount of wild 
oats, which up to the present moment make me no return. But 
it will always be a consolation to me to think that I have been the 
means — the humble means — of furthering that deserving young 
man’s prospects in life.” 

“You, F. B. ! and how?” we asked. 

“ By certain humble contributions of mine to the press,” answered 
Bayham majestically. “Mr. Warrington, the claret happens to 
stand with you ; and exercise does it good, sir. Yes, the articles, 
trifling as they may appear, have attracted notice,” continued F. B., 
sipping his wine with great gusto. “ They are noticed, Pendennis, 
give me leave to say, by parties who don’t value so much the literary 
or even the political part of the Pall Mall Gazette , though both, I 
am told by those who read them, are conducted with considerable 
— consummate ability. John Ridley sent a hundred pounds over 
to his father the other day, who funded it in his son’s name. And 
Ridley told the story to Lord Todmorden, when the venerable noble- 
man congratulated him on having such a child. I wish F. B. had 
one of the same sort, sir.” In which sweet prayer we all of us 
joined with a laugh. 

One of us had told Mrs. Mackenzie (let the criminal blush to 


456 


THE NEWCOMES 


own that quizzing his fellow-creatures used at one time to form part 
of his youthful amusement) that F. B. was the son of a gentleman 
of most ancient family, and vast landed possessions, and as Bayham 
was particularly attentive to the widow, and grandiloquent in his 
remarks, she was greatly pleased by his politeness, and pronounced 
him a most distingue man — reminding her, indeed, of General 
Hopkirk, who commanded in Canada. And she bade Rosey sing 
for Mr. Bayham, who was in a rapture at the young lady’s perform- 
ances, and said no wonder such an accomplished daughter came from 
such a mother, though how such a mother could have a daughter of 
such an age, he, F. B., was at a loss to understand. 0 sir ! Mrs. 
Mackenzie was charmed and overcome at this novel compliment. 
Meanwhile the little artless Rosey warbled on her pretty ditties. 

“ It is a wonder,” growled out Mr. Warrington, “ that that 
sweet girl can belong to such a woman. I don’t understand much 
about women, but that one appears to me to be — hum ! ” 

“What, George?” asked Warrington’s friend. 

“Well, an ogling, leering, scheming, artful old campaigner,” 
grumbled the misogynist. “ As for the little girl, I should like to 
have her to sing to me all night long. Depend upon it she would 
make a much better wife for Clive than that fashionable cousin of 
his he is hankering after. I heard him bellowing about her the 
other day in chambers, as I was dressing. What the deuce does 
the boy want with a wife at all?” And Rosey’s song being by 
this time finished, Warrington went up with a blushing face and 
absolutely paid a compliment to Miss Mackenzie — an almost un- 
heard-of effort on George’s part. 

“I wonder whether it is every young fellow’s lot,” quoth 
George, as we trudged home together, “to pawn his heart away 
to some girl that’s not worth the winning ? Psha ! it’s all mad 
rubbish this sentiment. The women ought not to be allowed to 
interfere with us : married if a man must be, a suitable wife should 
be portioned out to him, and there an end of it. Why doesn’t 
the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business and 
paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it — and the old 
Nabob yonder, who seems a kindly-disposed, easy-going old heathen 
philosopher. Here’s a pretty little girl ; money I suppose in suffi- 
ciency — everything satisfactory, except, I grant you, the campaigner. 
The lad might daub his canvases, christen a child a year, and be 
as happy as any young donkey that browses on this common of 
ours — but he must go and heehaw after a zebra, forsooth ! a lusus 
natures is she ! I never spoke to a woman of fashion, thank my 
stars — I don’t know the nature of the beast ; and since I went to 
our race-balls, as a boy, scarcely ever saw one ; as I don’t frequent 


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457 


operas and parties in London like you young flunkeys of the aris- 
tocracy. I heard you talking about this one, I couldn’t help it, 
as my door was open and the young one was shouting like a 
madman. What ! does he choose to hang on on sufferance, and 
hope to be taken, provided miss can get no better 1 ? Do you 
mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your 
confounded society do such things every day 1 Rather than have 
such a creature I would take a savage woman, who should nurse 
my dusky brood; and rather than have a daughter brought up 
to the trade, I would bring her down from the woods and sell her 
in Virginia.” With which burst of indignation our friend’s anger 
ended for that night. 

Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at 
a party or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, every time 
he perused the features of Lady Kew’s brass knocker in Queen 
Street, no result came of the visit. At one of their meetings 
in the world Ethel fairly told him that her grandmother would not 
receive him. “You know, Clive, I can’t help myself : nor would 
it be proper to make you signs out of the window. But you must 
call for all that : grandmamma may become more good-humoured ; 
or if you don’t come she may suspect I told you not to come ; and 
to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I assure you. 
Here is Lord Farintosh coming to take me to dance. You must 
not speak to me all the evening, mind that, sir,” and away goes 
the young lady in a waltz with the Marquis. 

On the same evening — as he was biting his nails, or cursing 
his fate, or wishing to invite Lord Farintosh into the neighbouring 
garden of Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to 
the station-house the corpse of the survivor, — Lady Kew would 
bow to him with perfect graciousness ; on other nights her Ladyship 
would pass and no more recognise him than the servant who opened 
the door. 

If she was not to see him at her grandmother’s house, and was 
not particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcome 
encourage Mr. Clive so that he should try and see her ? If Clive 
could not get into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord 
Farintosh’s enormous cab-horse looking daily into the first-floor 
windows of that street? Why were little quiet dinners made for 
him, before the opera, before going to the play, upon a half-dozen 
occasions, when some of the old old Kew port was brought out 
of the cellar, where cobwebs had gathered round it ere Farintosh 
was born ? The dining-room was so tiny that not more than five 
people could sit at the little round table : that is, not more than 
Lady Kew and her granddaughter, Miss Crochet, the late vicar’s 


458 


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daughter, at Kewbury, one of the Miss Toadins, and Captain 
Walleye, or Tommy Henchman, Farintosh’s kinsman and admirer, 
who were of no consequence, or old Fred Tiddler, whose wife was 
an invalid, and who was always ready at a moment’s notice. 
Crackthorpe once went to one of these dinners, but that young 
soldier, being a frank and high-spirited youth, abused the entertain- 
ment and declined more of them. “ I tell you what I was wanted 
for,” the Captain told his mess and Clive at the Regent’s Park 
Barracks afterwards : “ I was expected to go as Farintosh’s Groom 
of the Stole, don’t you know, to stand, or if I could, sit in the back 
seat of the box, whilst His Royal Highness made talk with the 
Beauty; to go out and fetch the carriage, and walk downstairs 

with that d crooked old dowager, that looks as if she usually 

rode on a broomstick, by Jove, or else with that bony old painted 
sheep-faced companion, who’s raddled like an old bell-wether. I 
think, Newcome, you seem to be rather hit by the Belle Cousine — 
so was I last season; so were ever so many of the fellows. By 
Jove, sir ! there’s nothing I know more comfortable or inspiritin’ 
than a younger son’s position, when a Marquis cuts in with fifteen 
thousand a year ! We fancy we’ve been making running, and 
suddenly we find ourselves nowhere. Miss Mary, or Miss Lucy, 
or Miss Ethel, saving your presence, will no more look at us, than 
my dog will look at a bit of bread when I offer her this cutlet. 
Will you — old woman ? no, you old slut, that you won’t ! ” (to Mag, 
an Isle of Skye terrier, who, in fact, prefers the cutlet, having 
snuffed disdainfully at the bread) — “ that you won’t, no more than 
any of your sex. Why, do you suppose, if Jack’s eldest brother 
had been dead — Barebones Belsize they used to call him (I don’t 
believe he was a bad fellow, though he was fond of psalm-singing) 
— do you suppose that Lady Clara would have looked at that 
cocktail Barney Newcome? Beg your pardon, if he’s your cousin 
— but a more odious little snob I never saw.” 

“ I give you up Barnes,” said Clive, laughing ; “ anybody may 
shy at him and I shan’t interfere.” 

“ I understand, but at nobody else of the family. Well, what 
I mean is, that that old woman is enough to spoil any young girl 
she takes in hand. She dries ’em up, and poisons ’em, sir ; and I 
was never more glad than when I heard that Kew had got out of 
her old clutches. Frank is a fellow that will always be led by 
some woman or another; and I’m only glad it should be a good 
one. They say his mother’s serious, and that ; but why shouldn’t 
she be h ” continues honest Crackthorpe, puffing his cigar with great 
energy. “They say the old dowager doesn’t believe in God nor 
devil : but that she’s in such a funk to be left in the dark that she 


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459 

howls and raises the doose’s own delight if her candle goes out. 
Toppleton slept next room to her at Groningham, and heard her ; 
didn’t you, Top ? ” 

“ Heard her howling like an old cat on the tiles,” says Topple- 
ton, — “ thought she was at first. My man told me that she used 
to fling all sorts of things — bootjacks and things, give you my 
honour — at her maid, and that the woman was all over black and 
blue.” 

“ Capital head that is Newcome has done of Jack Belsize ! ” 
says Crackthorpe, from out of his cigar. 

“ And Kew’s too — famous likeness ! I say, Newcome, if you 
have ’em printed the whole brigade ’ll subscribe. Make your 
fortune, see if you won’t,” cries Toppleton. 

“ He’s such a heavy swell ; he don’t want to make his fortune,” 
ejaculates Butts. 

“ Butts, old boy, he’ll paint you for nothing, and send you to 
the Exhibition, where some widow will fall in love with you ; and 
you shall be put as frontispiece for the ‘ Book of Beauty,’ by Jove,” 
cries another military satirist — to whom Butts : 

“You hold your tongue, you old Saracen’s Head ; they’re going 
to have you done on the bear’s-grease pots. I say, I suppose Jack’s 
all right now. When did he write to you last, Cracky 1 ” 

“He wrote from Palermo — a most jolly letter from him and 
Kew. He hasn’t touched a card for nine months ; is going to give 
up play. So is Frank, too, grown quite a good boy. So will you, 
too, Butts, you old miscreant, repent of your sins, pay your debts, 
and do something handsome for that poor deluded milliner in Albany 
Street. Jack says Kew’s mother has written over to Lord Highgate 
a beautiful letter — and the old boy’s relenting, and they’ll come 
together again — Jack’s eldest son now, you know. Bore for Lady 
Susan only having girls.” 

“Not a bore for Jack, though,” cries another. And what a 
good fellow Jack was ; and what a trump Kew is ; and how 
famously he stuck by him : went to see him in prison and paid him 
out ! and what good fellows we all are, in general, became the 
subject of the conversation, the latter part of which took place in 
the smoking-room of the Begent’s Park Barracks, then occupied by 
that regiment of Life Guards of which Lord Kew and Mr. Belsize 
had been members. Both were still fondly remembered by their 
companions; and it was because Belsize had spoken very warmly 
of Clive’s friendliness to him that Jack’s friend the gallant Crack- 
thorpe had been interested in our hero, and found an opportunity of 
making his acquaintance. 

With these frank and pleasant young men Clive soon formed 


460 


THE NEWCOMES 


a considerable intimacy ; and if any of his older and peaceful friends 
chanced to take their afternoon airing in the Park, and survey the 
horsemen there, we might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. New- 
come in Rotten Row, riding side by side with other dandies, who 
had mustachios blond or jet, who wore flowers in their button- 
holes (themselves being flowers of spring), who rode magnificent 
thoroughbred horses, scarcely touching their stirrups with the tips 
of their varnished boots, and who kissed the most beautiful primrose- 
coloured kid gloves to lovely ladies passing them in the Ride. Clive 
drew portraits of half the officers of the Life Guards Green ; and 
was appointed painter in ordinary to that distinguished corps. His 
likeness of the Colonel would make you die with laughing : his 
picture of the Surgeon was voted a masterpiece. He drew the 
men in the saddle, in the stable, in their flannel dresses, sweeping 
their flashing swords about, receiving lancers, repelling infantry, — 
nay, cutting a sheep in two, as some of the warriors are known to 
be able to do at one stroke. Detachments of Life Guardsmen made 
their appearance in Charlotte Street, which was not very distant 
from their barracks; the most splendid cabs were seen prancing 
before his door ; aud curly- whiskered youths, of aristocratic appear- 
ance, smoking cigars out of his painting-room window. How many 
times did Clive’s next-door neighbour, little Mr. Finch, the miniature 
painter, run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter 
was coming, and “ a carriage-party ” driving up ! What wrath Mr. 
Scowler, A.R.A., was in, because a young hop-o’-my-thumb dandy, 
who wore gold chains and his collars turned down, should spoil 
the trade, and draw portraits for nothing. Why did none of the 
young men come to Scowler? Scowler was obliged to own that 
Mr. Newcome had considerable talent, and a good knack at catch- 
ing a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to be sure, but his heads 
in black and white were really tolerable; his sketches of horses 
very vigorous and life-like. Mr. Gandish said if Clive would come 
for three or four years into his academy he could make something 
of him. Mr. Smee shook his head, and said he was afraid that 
kind of loose, desultory study, that keeping of aristocratic com- 
pany, was anything but favourable to a young artist — Smee, who 
would walk five miles to attend an evening party of ever so little 
a great man ! 


CHAPTER XLIV 


IN WHICH MR. CHARLES HONEY MAN APPEARS IN AN 
AMIABLE LIGHT 

\ 

M R. FREDERICK BAYHAM waited at Fitzroy Square 
while Clive was yet talking with his friends there, and 
favoured that gentleman with his company home to the 
usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in F. B.’s society, 
whether he was in a sportive mood, or, as now, in a solemn and 
didactic vein. F. B. had been more than ordinarily majestic all 
the evening. “ I dare say you find me a good deal altered, Clive,” 
he remarked : “I am a good deal altered. Since that good 
Samaritan, your kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow fallen 
among thieves (though I don’t say, mind you, he was much better 
than his company), F. B. has mended some of his ways. I am 
trying a course of industry, sir. Powers, perhaps naturally great, 
have been neglected over the wine-cup and the die. I am begin- 
ning to feel my way : and my chiefs yonder, who have just walked 
home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as much as 
saying 1 F. B., my boy, shall we go to the “ Haunt ” and have a 
cool lobster and a glass of table beer ? ’ — which they certainly do 
not consider themselves to be, — I say, sir, the Politician and the 
Literary Critic ” (there was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these 
phrases, characterising Messrs. Warrington and Pendennis) “may 
find that there is a humble contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette , 
whose name, maybe, the amateur shall one day reckon even higher 
than their own. Mr. Warrington I do not say so much about — 
he is an able man, sir, an able man ; but there is that about your 
exceedingly self-satisfied friend, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, which — 
well, well — let time show. You did not — get the — hem — paper 
at Rome and Naples, I suppose % ” 

“ Forbidden by the Inquisition,” says Clive, delighted ; “ and 
at Naples the king furious against it.” 

“ I don’t wonder they don’t like it at Rome, sir. There’s 
serious matter in it which may set the prelates of a certain church 
rather in a tremor. You haven’t read — the ahem — the Pulpit 
Pencillings in the P. M. G. ? Slight sketches, mental and cor- 


462 THE NEWCOMES 

poreal, of our chief divines now in London — and signed Laud 
Latimer 1 ” 

“ I don’t do much in that way,” said Clive. 

“ So much the worse for you, my young friend. Not that I 
mean to judge any other fellow harshly — I mean any other fellow- 
sinner harshly — or that I mean that those Pulpit Pencillings would 
be likely to do you any great good. But, such as they are, they 
have been productive of benefit. Thank you, Mary, my dear, the 
tap is uncommonly good, and I drink to your future husband’s good 
health. — A glass of good sound beer refreshes after all that claret. 
Well, sir, to return to the Pencillings, pardon my vanity in saying, 
that though Mr. Pendennis laughs at them, they have been of 
essential service to the paper. They give it a character, they rally 
round it the respectable classes. They create correspondence. I 
have received many interesting letters, chiefly from females, about 
the Pencillings. Some complain that their favourite preachers are 
slighted ; others applaud because the clergymen they sit under are 
supported by F. B. I am Laud Latimer, sir, — though I have 
heard the letters attributed to the Rev. Mr. Bunker, and to a 
Member of Parliament eminent in the religious world.” 

“ So you are the famous Laud Latimer 1 ” cries Clive, who had, 
in fact, seen letters signed by those right reverend names in our 
paper. 

“ Famous is hardly the word. One who scoffs at everything — 
I need not say I allude to Mr. Arthur Pendennis — would have had 
the letters signed — the Beadle of the Parish. He calls me the 
Venerable Beadle sometimes — it being, I grieve to say, his way to 
deride grave subjects. You wouldn’t suppose now, my young Clive, 
that the same hand which pens the Art criticisms, occasionally, 
when his Highness Pendennis is lazy, takes a minor Theatre, or 
turns the sportive epigram, or the ephemeral paragraph, should 
adopt a grave theme on a Sunday, and chronicle the Sermons of 
British Divines ? For eighteen consecutive Sunday evenings, Clive, 
in Mrs. Ridley’s front parlour, which I now occupy, vice Miss Cann 
promoted, I have written the Pencillings — scarcely allowing a drop 
of refreshment, except under extreme exhaustion, to pass my lips. 
Pendennis laughs at the Pencillings. He wants to stop them ; and 
says they bore the public. — I don’t want to think a man is jealous, 
who was himself the cause of my engagement at the P. M. 6%, — 
perhaps my powers were not developed then.” 

“ Pen thinks he writes better now than when he began,” re- 
marked Clive ; “I have heard him say so.” 

“ His opinion of his own writings is high, whatever their date. 
Mine, sir, are only just coming into notice. They begin to know 


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463 


F. B., sir, in the sacred edifices of his metropolitan city. I saw the 
Bishop of London looking at me last Sunday week, and am sure his 
Chaplain whispered him, ‘ It’s Mr. Bayham, my Lord, nephew of 
your Lordship’s right reverend brother, the Lord Bishop of Bullock- 
smithy.’ And last Sunday being at church — at St. Mungo the 
Martyr’s, Rev. S. Sawders — by Wednesday I got in a female hand 
— Mrs. Sawders’s, no doubt — the biography of the Incumbent of St. 
Mungo ; an account of his early virtues ; a copy of his poems ; and 
a hint that he was the gentleman destined for the vacant Deanery. 

“ Ridley is not the only man I have helped in this world,” 
F. B. continued. “ Perhaps I should blush to own it — I do blush : 
but I feel the ties of early acquaintance, and I own that I have 
puffed your uncle, Charles Honeyman, most tremendously. It was 
partly for the sake of the Ridleys and the tick he owes ’em : partly 
for old times’ sake. Sir, are you aware that things are greatly 
changed with Charles Honeyman, and that the poor F. B. has very 
likely made his fortune 1 ” 

“ I am delighted to hear it,” cried Clive ; “ and how, F. B., 
have you wrought this miracle 1 ” 

“ By common sense and enterprise, lad — by a knowledge of the 
world and a benevolent disposition. You’ll see Lady Whittlesea’s 
chapel bears a very different aspect now. That miscreant Sherrick 
owns that he owes me a turn, and has sent me a few dozen of wine 
— without any stamped paper on my part in return — as an acknow- 
ledgment of my service. It chanced, sir, soon after your departure 
for Italy, that going to his private residence respecting a little bill 
to which a heedless friend had put his hand, Sherrick invited me to 
partake of tea in the bosom of his family. I was thirsty — having 
walked in from ‘ Jack Straw’s Castle,’ at Hampstead, where poor 
Kitely and I had been taking a chop — and accepted the proffered 
entertainment. The ladies of the family gave us music after the 
domestic muffin — and then, sir, a great idea occurred to me. You 
know how magnificently Miss Sherrick and the mother sing 1 They 
sang Mozart, sir. ‘Why,’ I asked of Sherrick, ‘should those ladies 
who sing Mozart to a piano, not sing Handel to an organ ? 

“ ‘ Dash it, you don’t mean a hurdy-gurdy ? ’ 

“ ‘ Sherrick,’ says I, ‘ you are no better than a heathen igno- 
ramus. I mean, why shouldn’t they sing Handel’s Church Music, 
and Church Music in general, 'in Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel 1 Behind 
the screen up in the organ-loft, what’s to prevent ’em 1 by Jingo ! 
Your singing boys have gone to the “ Cave of Harmony ” ; you and 
your choir have split — why should not these ladies lead it ? ’ He 
caught at the idea. You never heard the chants more finely given 
— and they would be better still if the congregation would but hold 


464 


THE NEWCOMES 


their confounded tongues. It was an excellent though a harmless 
dodge, sir : and drew immensely, to speak profanely. They dress 
the part, sir, to admiration — a sort of nun-like costume they come 
in : Mrs. Sherrick has the soul of an artist still — by Jove, sir, when 
they have once smelt the lamps, the love of the trade never leaves 
’em. The ladies actually practised by moonlight in the chapel, and 
came over to Honeyman’s to an oyster afterwards. The thing took, 
sir. People began to take box — seats I mean, again — and Charles 
Honeyman, easy in his mind through your noble father’s generosity, 
perhaps inspirited by returning good fortune, has been preaching 
more eloquently than ever. He took some lessons of Husler, of 
the Haymarket, sir. His sermons are old, I believe; but, so to 
speak, he has got them up with new scenery, dresses, and effects, 
sir. They have flowers, sir, about the buildin’ — pious ladies are 
supposed to provide ’em, but, entre nous , Sherrick contracts for 
them with Nathan, or some one in Covent Garden. And — don’t 
tell this now, upon your honour ! ” 

“ Tell what, F. B. 1 ” says Clive. 

“ I got up a persecution against your uncle for Popish practices : 
summoned a meetin’ at the ‘Running Footman,’ in Bolingbroke 
Street. Billings, the butterman ; Sharwood, the turner and black- 
ing-maker; and the Honourable Plielim O’Curragh, Lord Sculla- 
bogue’s son, made speeches. Two or three respectable families 
(your aunt, Mrs. What -d’you- call -’em Newcome, amongst the 
number) quitted the chapel in disgust — I wrote an article of con- 
troversial biography in the P. M. G. ; set the business going in the 
daily press; and the thing was done, sir. That property is a 
paying one to the Incumbent, and to Sherrick over him. Charles’s 
affairs are getting all right, sir. He never had the pluck to owe 
much, and if it be a sin to have wiped his slate clean, satisfied his 
creditors, and made Charles easy — upon my conscience, I must 
confess that F. B. has done it. I hope I may never do anything 
worse in this life, Clive. It ain’t bad to see him doing the martyr, 
sir : Sebastian riddled with paper pellets ; Bartholomew on a cold 
gridiron. Here comes the lobster. Upon my word, Mary, a finer 
fish I’ve seldom seen.” 

Now surely this account of his uncle’s affairs and prosperity 
was enough to send Clive to Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, and it was 
not because Miss Ethel had said that she and Lady Kew went 
there, that Clive was induced to go there too ? He attended punctu- 
ally on the next Sunday, and in the Incumbent’s pew, whither the 
pew-woman conducted him, sat Mr. Sherrick in great gravity, with 
large gold pins, who handed him, at the anthem, a large new gilt, 
hymn-book. 


THE NEWCOMES 


465 


An odour of millefleurs rustled by them as Charles Honeyman, 
accompanied by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the 
vestry, and took his place at the desk. Formerly he used to wear 
a flaunting scarf over his surplice, which was very wide and full ; 
and Clive remembered when as a boy he entered the sacred robing- 
room, how his uncle used to pat and puff out the scarf and the 
sleeves of his vestment, arrange the natty curl on his forehead, and 
take his place, a fine example of florid church decoration. Now 
the scarf was trimmed down to be as narrow as your neckcloth, and 
hung loose and straight over the back ; the ephod was cut straight 
and as close and short as might be — I believe there was a little 
trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and a slight arabesque of 
tape, or other substance, round the edge of the surplice. As for the 
curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than the Maypole 
in the Strand, or the Cross at Charing. Honeyman’s hair was 
parted down the middle, short in front, and curling delicately 
round his ears and the back of his head. He read the service 
in a swift manner, and with a gentle twang. When the music 
began, he stood with head on one side, and two slim fingers on 
the book, as composed as a statue in a mediaeval niche. It was fine 
to hear Sherrick, who had an uncommonly good voice, join in the 
musical parts of the service. The produce of the market-gardener 
decorated the church here and there; and the impresario of the 
establishment having picked up a Flemish painted window from 
old Moss in Wardour Street, had placed it in his chapel. Labels 
of faint green and gold, with long gothic letters painted thereon, 
meandered over the organ-loft and galleries, and strove to give 
as mediaeval a look to Lady Whittlesea’s as the place was capable 
of assuming. 

In the sermon Charles dropped the twang with the surplice, 
and the priest gave way to the preacher. He preached short 
stirring discourses on the subjects of the day. It happened that 
a noble young prince, the hope of a nation and heir of a royal 
house, had just then died by a sudden accident. Absalom, the 
son of David, furnished Honeyman with a parallel. He drew a 
picture of the two deaths, of the grief of kings, of the fate that is 
superior to them. It was, indeed, a stirring discourse, and caused 
thrills through the crowd to whom Charles imparted it. “ Famous, 
ain’t it?” says Sherrick, giving Clive a hand when the rite was 
over. “How he’s come out, hasn’t he? Didn’t think he had it 
in him.” Sherrick seemed to have become of late impressed with 
the splendour of Charles’s talents, and spoke of him — was it not 
disrespectful ? — as a manager would of a successful tragedian. Let 
us pardon Sherrick: he had been in the theatrical way. “That 
8 2 G 


466 


THE NEWCOMES 


Irishman was no go at all,” he whispered to Mr. Newcome; “got 
rid of him, — let’s see, at Michaelmas.” 

On account of Clive’s tender years and natural levity, a little 
inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked 
about him very eagerly during the service. The house was filled 
by the ornamental classes, the bonnets of the newest Parisian 
fashion. Away in a darkling corner, under the organ, sat a squad 
of footmen. Surely that powdered one in livery wore Lady Kew’s 
colours ? So Clive looked under all the bonnets, and presently spied 
old Lady Kew’s face, as grim and yellow as her brass knocker, and 
by it Ethel’s beauteous countenance. He dashed out of church when 
the congregation rose to depart. “ Stop and see Honeyman, won’t 
you ? ” asked Sherrick, surprised. 

“Yes, yes ; come back again,” said Clive, and was gone. 

He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis 
and an elderly lady were in Lady Kew’s company. Clive had 
passed close under Lady Kew’s venerable Roman nose without 
causing that organ to bow in ever so slight a degree towards the 
ground. Ethel had recognised him with a smile and a nod. My 
Lord was whispering one of his noble pleasantries in her ear. She 
laughed at the speech or the speaker. The steps of a fine belozenged 
carriage were let down with a bang. The Yellow One had jumped 
up behind it, by the side of his brother Giant Canary. Lady Kew’s 
equipage had disappeared, and Lady Canterton’s was stopping the 
way. 

Clive returned to the chapel by the little door near to the 
Vestiarium. All the congregation had poured out by this time. 
Only two ladies were standing near the pulpit ; and Sherrick, with 
his hands rattling his money in his pockets, was pacing up and 
down the aisle. 

“Capital house, Mr. Newcome, wasn’t it? I counted no less 
than fourteen nobs. The Princess of Montcontour and her husband, 
I suppose, that chap with the beard, who yawns so during the 
sermon. I’m blessed if I didn’t think he’d have yawned his head 
off. Countess of Kew, and her daughter ; Countess of Canterton, 
and the Honourable Miss Fetlock — no, Lady Fetlock. A Countess’s 
daughter is a lady, I’m dashed if she ain’t. Lady Glenlivat and her 
sons ; the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh, and Lord ’Enry 
Roy ; that makes seven — no, nine — with the Prince and Princess. 
Julia, my dear, you came out like a good un to-day. Never heard 
you in finer voice. Remember Mr. Clive Newcome?” 

Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies, who acknowledged him by 
graceful curtseys. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the vestry 
door. 



LADY AATTTLESEa’s CHAPEL — LADY KEAV’s CARRIAGE STOPS THE AVAY. 













































































































































































































































































































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THE NEWCOMES 


467 


“ How’s the old Colonel ? The best feller — excuse my calling 
him a feller — but he is, and a good one too. I went to see Mr. 
Binnie, my other tenant. He looks a little yellow about the gills, 
Mr. Binnie. Very proud woman that is who lives with him — 
uncommon haughty. When will you come down and take your 
mutton in the Regent’s Park, Mr. Clive'? There’s some tolerable 
good wine down there. Our reverend gent drops in and takes a 
glass, don’t he, missis ? ” 

“ We shall be most ’appy to see Mr. Newcome, I’m sure,” says 
the handsome and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. “Won’t we, 
Julia r’ 

“ Oh, certainly,” says Julia, who seems rather absent. And 
behold at this moment the reverend gent enters from the vestry. 
Both the ladies run towards him, holding forth their hands. 

“ Oh, Mr. Honeyman ! What a sermon ! Me and Julia cried 
so up in the organ-loft; we thought you would have heard us. 
Didn’t we, Julia?” 

“ Oh yes,” says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing. 

“ When you described the young man, I thought of my poor 
boy, didn’t I, Julia ? ” cries the mother, with tears streaming down 
her face. 

“We had a loss more than ten years ago,” whispers Sherrick 
to Clive gravely. “And she’s always thinking of it. Women 
are so.” 

Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling. 

“ You know his mother was an Absalom,” the good wife con- 
tinues, pointing to her husband. “Most respectable diamond 
merchants in ” 

“ Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone, 
do now,” says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle’s fond 
embrace by this time, who rebukes him for not having called in 
Walpole Street. * 

“ Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to ’ave a 
family dinner ? ” asks Sherrick. 

“Ah, Mr. Newcome, do come,” says Julia in her deep rich voice, 
looking up to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been 
a vain fellow like some folks, who knows but he might have thought 
he had made an impression on the handsome Julia? 

“Thursday, now make it Thursday, if Mr. H. is disengaged. 
Come along, girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they’re a stand- 
ing still, and makes ’em mad this weather. Anything you like for 
dinner. Cut of salmon and cucumber? No, pickled salmon’s best 
this weather.” 

“ Whatever you give me, you know I’m thankful ! ” 


says 


468 


THE NEW COMES 


Honeyman, in a sweet sad voice, to the two ladies, who were stand- 
ing looking at him, the mother’s hand clasped in the daughter’s. 

“Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? 
Julia sings it splendid ! ” 

“No, I don’t, ma.” 

“ You do, dear ! She’s a good, good dear, Mr. H., that’s what 
she is.” 

“ You must not call — a — him, in that way. Don’t say Mr. H., 
ma,” says Julia. 

“ Call me what you please ! ” says Charles, with the most heart- 
rending simplicity ; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her 
daughter. Sherrick meanwhile has been pointing out the improve- 
ment of the chapel to Clive (which now has indeed a look of the 
Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and has confided to him the sum for 
which he screwed the painted window out of old Moss. “ When he 
come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man was mad, I give 
you my word ! His son ain’t no good : says he knows you. He’s 
such a screw, that chap, that he’ll overreach himself, mark my 
words. At least, he’ll never die rich. Did you ever hear of me 
screwing? No, I spend my money like a man. How those girls 
are a goin’ on about their music with Honeyman. I don’t let ’em 
sing in the evening, or him do duty more than once a day ; and you 
can calc’late how the music draws, because in the evening there ain’t 
half the number of people here. Rev. Mr. Journyman does the 
duty now — quiet Hoxford man — ill, I suppose, this morning. H. 
sits in his pew, where he was, and coughs ! that’s to say, I told him 
to cough. The women like a consumptive parson, sir. Come, 
gals ! ” 

Clive went to his uncle’s lodgings, and was received by Mr. and 
Mrs. Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good 
people had made it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immedi- 
ately on his return to England, and thank him over and over again 
for his kindness to John James. Never, never would they forget 
his goodness, and the Colonel’s, they were sure. A cake, a heap of 
biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six frizzling hot mutton chops, and four 
kinds of wine, came bustling up to Mr. Honeyman’s room twenty 
minutes after Clive had entered it, — as a token of the Ridleys’ 
affection for him. 

Clive remarked, with a smile, the Pall Mall Gazette upon a 
side-table, and in the chimney-glass almost as many cards as in 
the time of Honeyman’s early prosperity. That he and his uncle 
should be very intimate together was impossible, from the nature of 
the two men : Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious ; 
Charles, timid, vain, and double-faced, conscious that he was a 


THE NEWCOMES 


469 

humbug, and that most people found him out, so that he would 
quiver and turn away, and be more afraid of young Clive and his 
direct straightforward way, than of many older men. Then there 
was the sense of the money transactions between him and the 
Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In fine, 
they did not like each other ; but, as he is a connection of the most 
respectable Newcome family, surely he is entitled to a page or two 
in these their memoirs. 

Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick’s entertainment, to 
which also Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet 
Colonel Newcome’s son. Uncle James and Ro3ey brought Clive in 
their carriage ; Mrs. Mackenzie sent a headache as an apology. 
She chose to treat Uncle James’s landlord with a great deal of 
hauteur, and to be angry with her brother for visiting such a 
person. “ In fact, you see how fond I must be of dear little Rosey, 
Clive, that I put up with all mamma’s tantrums for her sake,” 
remarks Mr. Binnie. 

“ 0 uncle ! ” says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped 
her remonstrances with a kiss. 

“Yes,” says he, “your mother does have tantrums, miss; and 
though you never complain, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. 
You will not tell on me ” (it was “ 0 uncle ! ” again) ; “ and Clive 
won’t, I am sure. This little thing, sir,” James went on, hold- 
ing Rosey’s pretty little hand and looking fondly in her pretty 
little face, “is her old uncle’s only comfort in life. I wish I had 
had her out to India to me, and never come back to this great 
dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom Newcome ; 
and I’m too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let it lie. 
Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a 
month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken 
her away from me ; and now she has promised never to leave her 
old Uncle James, hasn’t she?” 

“No, never, uncle,” said Rosey. 

“ We don’t want to fall in love, do we, child ? We don’t want 
to be breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing 
attendance at balls night after night, and capering about in the 
Park to see if we can get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, * 
Rosey ? ” 

Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both 
knew of Clive’s love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of 
the carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why, Mrs. 
Mackenzie and Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over. 

“This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on 
this side of Styx,” continued Uncle James; “and if she could but 


* 


470 


THE NEWCOMES 


be left alone, and do it without mamma — there, I won’t say a word 
more against her — we should get on none the worse.” 

“ Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey,” said 
Clive good-humouredly. And Rosey said, “ Oh, thank you, Clive,” 
and held out that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind 
and happy, that Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of 
so much innocence and candour. 

“ Quasty peecoly Rosiny,” says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, 
“ b la piu bella, la piu cara ragazza, ma la maw dry b il diav ” 

“ Don’t, uncle ! ” cried Rosey again ; and Clive laughed at Uncle 
James’s wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue. 

“ Eh ! I thought ye didn’t know a word of the sweet language, 
Rosey ! It’s just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that 
I thought to try in compliment to this young monkey who has seen 
the world.” And by this time St. John’s Wood was reached; and 
Mr. Sherrick’s handsome villa, at the door of which the three beheld 
the Rev. Charles Honeyman stepping out of a neat brougham. 

The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick 
when she was in the theatrical line ; Smee’s portrait of her, “ which 
was never half handsome enough for my Betsy,” Sherrick said 
indignantly ; the print of her in “ Artaxerxes,” with her signature 
as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in truth a fine specimen of caligraphy) : 
the testimonial presented to her on the conclusion of the triumphal 
season of 18 — , at Drury Lane, by her ever grateful friend, Adolphus 
Smacker, Lessee, who of course went to law with her next year ; 
and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked, with not a 
little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now covered 
with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de 
Montcontour’s, and many French and German ecclesiastical gim- 
cracks, such as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. There 
were the Lives of Saint Botibol of Islington, and Saint Willibald of 
Bareacres ; with pictures of those confessors. Then there was the 
“Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin and Martyr,” with a sweet 
double frontispiece, representing (1) the sainted woman selling her 
feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and (2) reclining upon 
straw, the leanest of invalids. There was “ Old Daddy Longlegs, 
. and how he was brought to say his Prayers ; a tale for Children, 
by a Lady,” with a preface dated St. Chad’s Eve, and signed 
“C. H.” “The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s Sermons, delivered at 
Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel.” “ Poems of Early Days, by Charles 
Honeyman, A.M.” “The Life of good Dame Whittlesea,” by 
do. do. Yes, Charles had come out in the literary line ; and there 
in a basket was a strip of Berlin work, of the very same Gothic 
pattern which Madame de Montcontour was weaving, and which 


THE NEWCOMES 


471 


you afterwards saw round the pulpit of Charles’s chapel. Rosey 
was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies ; and as the gentle- 
men sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Clive 
beheld Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia’s 
arm round her little friend’s waist : he thought they would make 
a pretty little picture. 

“ My girl ain’t a bad one to look at, is she 1 ” said the pleased 
father. “ A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than 
them two.” 

Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the “ Two 
Leonoras,” which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty. 

“ I wish I could paint them,” said Clive. 

“And why not, sir 1 ?” asks his host. “Let me give you your 
first commission now, Mr. Clive ; I wouldn’t mind paying a good 
bit for a picture of my Julia. I forget how much old Smee got 
for Betsy’s, the old humbug ! ” 

Clive said it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. 
He succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him 
as yet. 

“ Those you’ve done up at Albany Street Barracks are famous : 
I’ve seen ’em,” said Mr. Sherrick; and, remarking that his guest 
looked rather surprised at the idea of his being in such company, 
Sherrick said, “ What, you think they are too great swells for me ? 
Law bless you, I often go there. I’ve business with several of ’em ; 
had with Captain Belsize, with the Earl of Kew, who’s every inch 
the gentleman — one of nature’s aristocracy, and paid up like a man. 
The Earl and me has had many dealings together.” 

Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. 
Sherrick’s boisterous entreaties to drink more, the gentlemen quitted 
the dinner- table, which had been served in a style of prodigious 
splendour, and went to the drawing-room for a little music. 

This was all of the gravest and best kind ; so grave, indeed, 
that James Binnie might be heard in a corner giving an accom- 
paniment of little snores to the singers and the piano. But Rosey 
was delighted with the performance, and Sherrick remarked to 
Clive, “ That’s a good gal, that is ; I like that gal ; she ain’t jealous 
of Julia cutting her out in the music, but listens as pleased as any 
one. She’s a sweet little pipe of her own, too. Miss Mackenzie, 
if ever you like to go to the opera, send a word either to my West 
End or my City office. I’ve boxes every week, and you’re welcome 
to anything I can give you.” 

So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one ; 
and they of Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most com- 
fortable friendly way — that is, two of them, for Uncle James fell 


472 


THE NEWCOMES 


asleep again, taking possession of the back seat ; and Clive and 
Rosey prattled together. He had offered to try and take all the 
young ladies’ likenesses. “You know what a failure the last 
was, Rosey?” — he had very nearly said “dear Rosey.” 

“ Yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome, that you will succeed 
better with her than with my round face, Mr. Newcome.” 

“ Mr. What ? ” cries Clive. 

“Well, Clive, then,” says Rosey in a little voice. 

He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. 
“You know we are like brother and sister, dear Rosey,” he said 
this time. 

‘ Yes,” said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And 
then Uncle James woke up; and it seemed as if the whole drive 
didn’t occupy a minute, and they shook hands very very kindly 
at the door of Fitzroy Square. 

Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which 
Mr. Sherrick was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who 
happened to call upon his nephew once or twice when the ladies 
happened to be sitting. Then Clive proposed to the Rev. Charles 
Honeyman to take his head off; and made an excellent likeness 
in chalk of his uncle — that one, in fact, from which the print 
was taken, which you may see any day at Hogarth’s, in the Hay- 
market, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles 
became so friendly, that he was constantly coming to Charlotte 
Street, once or twice a week. 

Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing, and were 
charmed with it; and when Rosey was sitting, they came to see 
her portrait, which again was not quite so successful. One Monday, 
the Sherricks and Honeyman too happened to call to see the picture 
of Rosey, who trotted over with her uncle to Clive’s studio, and 
they all had a great laugh at a paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette , 
evidently from F. B.’s hand, to the following effect : — 

“ Conversion in High Life. — A foreign nobleman of princely 
rank, who has married an English lady, and has resided among us 
for some time, is likely, we hear and trust, to join the English 
Church. The Prince de M — ntc — nt — r has been a constant 
attendant at Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, of which the Rev. C. 
Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent ; and it is said this sound 
and talented divine has been the means of awakening the Prince to 
a sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred. His 
ancestors were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IY. 
at Ivry. In Louis XIV. ’s time, they adopted the religion of that 
persecuting monarch. We sincerely trust that the present heir 


THE NEWCOMBS 473 

of the house of Ivry will see fit to return to the creed which 
his forefathers so unfortunately abjured.” 

The ladies received this news with perfect gravity ; and Charles 
uttered a meek wish that it might prove true. As they went 
away, they offered more hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and 
his niece. They liked the music, would they not come and hear 
it again ? 

When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could 
not help saying to Uncle James, “Why are those people always 
coming here ; praising me ; and asking me to dinner ? Do you 
know, I can’t help thinking that they rather want me as a pre- 
tender for Miss Sherrick ? ” 

Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, “ 0 vanitas vani- 
tawtum ! ” Rosey laughed too. 

“ I don’t think it any joke at all,” said Clive. 

“ Why, you stupid lad, don’t you see it is Charles Honeyman 
the girl’s in love with 1 ” cried Uncle James. “ Rosey saw it in the 
very first instant we entered their drawing-room three weeks ago.” 

“ Indeed, and how 1 ” asked Clive. 

“ By — by the way she looked at him,” said little Rosey. 


CHAPTER XLV 


A STAG OF TEN 


HE London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord 



Farintosh had danced I don’t know how many times with 


* Miss Newcome, had drunk several bottles of the old Kew 
port, had been seen at numerous breakfasts, operas, races, and public 
places by the young lady’s side, and had not as yet made any such 
proposal as Lady Kew expected for her granddaughter. Clive going 
to see his military friends in the Regent’s Park once, and finish 
Captain Butts’s portrait in barracks, heard two or three young men 
talking, and one say to another, “ I bet you three to two Farintosh 
don’t marry her, and I bet you even that he don’t ask her.” Then 
as he entered Mr. Butts’s room, where these gentlemen were con- 
versing, there was a silence and an awkwardness. The young 
fellows were making an “ event ” out of Ethel’s marriage, and sport- 
ing their money freely on it. 

To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so reso- 
lutely that all the world should be able to look on and speculate 
whether her game would be run down by that staunch toothless 
old pursuer — that is an amusing sport, isn’t it 1 and affords plenty 
of fun and satisfaction to those who follow the hunt. But for 
a heroine of a story, be she ever so clever, handsome, and sar- 
castic, I don’t think for my part, at this present stage of the 
tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified position. To 
break her heart in silence for Tomkins, who is in love with 
another ; to suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians, 
ill-treatment by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small- 
pox, death even at the end of the volume; all these mishaps 
a young heroine may endure (and has endured in romances over 
and over again), without losing the least dignity, or suffering 
any diminution of the sentimental reader’s esteem. But a girl 
of great beauty, high temper, and strong natural intellect, who 
submits to be dragged hither and thither in an old grandmother’s 
leash, and in pursuit of a husband who will run away from the 
couple, such a person, I say, is in a very awkward position as 
a heroine; and I declare if I had another ready to my hand 


THE NEWCOMES 


475 


(and unless there were extenuating circumstances), Ethel should be 
deposed at this very sentence. 

But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his 
wife, for better or worse, and to the end. For how many years 
have the Spaniards borne with their gracious queen, not because 
she was faultless, but because she was there. So Chambers and 
grandees cried, “ God save her,” Alabarderos turned out, drums 
beat, cannons fired, and people saluted Isabella Segunda, who was 
no better than the humblest washerwoman of her subjects. Are 
we much better than our neighbours 1 Do we never yield to our 
peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice, or our vanity, or 
what not 1 ? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is 
very young. She is in other people’s hands. She has been bred 
up and governed by a very worldly family, and taught their tradi- 
tions. We would hardly, for instance — the staunchest Protestant 
in England would hardly be angry, with poor Isabella Segunda for 
being a Catholic, So if Ethel worships at a certain image which 
a great number of good folks in England bow to, let us not be too 
angry with her idolatry, and bear with our queen a little longer 
before we make our pronunciamiento. 

No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, 
however you may argue that hundreds of people in the world are 
doing like you. Oh me ! what a confession it is, in the very outset 
of life and blushing brightness of youth’s morning, to own that 
the aim with which a young girl sets out, and the object of her 
existence, is to marry a rich man; that she was endowed with 
beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a title with it ; that as 
sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business here on earth is 
to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for which many 
a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world with 
some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow 
the truth ; he will strive to win honours for himself, and never 
do a base action; he will pass nights over his books, and forego 
ease and pleasure so that he may achieve a name Many a 
poor wretch who is worn out now and old, and bankrupt of fame 
and money too, has commenced life at any rate with noble views 
and generous schemes, from which weakness, idleness, passion, 
or overpowering hostile fortune have turned him away. But a 
girl of the world, bon Dieu ! the doctrine with which she begins 
is that she is to have a wealthy husband : the article of Faith in 
her catechism is, “ I believe in elder sons, and a house in town, 
and a house in the country ! ” They are mercenary as they step 
fresh and blooming into the world out of the nursery. They have 
been schooled there to keep their bright eyes to look only on the 


476 


THE NEW COMES 


Prince and the Duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping and 
careful process, their little natural hearts have been squeezed up, 
like the feet of their fashionable little sisters in China. As you 
see a pauper’s child, with an awful premature knowledge of the 
pawn-shop, able to haggle at market with her wretched halfpence, 
and battle bargains at hucksters’ stalls, you shall find a young 
beauty, who was a child in the schoolroom a year since, as wise 
and knowing as the old practitioners on that exchange ; as econo- 
mical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back or producing her 
beautiful wares, as skilful in setting one bidder against another, as 
keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair. 

If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were 
talking about Miss Newcome and her suitors were silent when Clive 
appeared amongst them, it was because they were aware not only 
of his relationship to the young lady, but his unhappy condition 
regarding her. Certain men there are who never tell their love, 
but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on their damask 
cheeks ; others again must be always not only thinking, but talking 
about the darling object. So it was not very long before Captain 
Crackthorpe was taken into Clive’s confidence, and through Crack- 
thorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted with his 
passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into 
the world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in 
their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already 
aware, that Miss Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that 
he had best not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful 
grapes which were beyond his reach. 

But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the 
young painter’s condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive’s 
warmest thanks for his good offices), by asking admission for Clive 
to certain evening parties of the beau-monde , where he had the 
gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and 
pleased, and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at meeting Clive 
Newcome at these fashionable houses ; the girl herself was touched 
very likely at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no 
actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to 
dance with her cousin ; and thus he picked up such small crumbs 
of consolation as a youth in his state can get ; lived upon six words 
vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the 
eyes which she had presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance 
of a squeeze of the hand on parting or meeting. How eager he was 
to get a card to this party or that ! how attentive to the givers of 
such entertainments ! Some friends of his accused him of being a 
tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy, on account of his polite- 


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ness to certain people ; the truth was, he wanted to go wherever 
Miss Ethel was ; and the ball was blank to him which she did not 
attend. 

This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the 
time of the second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many ac- 
quaintances, that he needed few more introductions into society. 
He was very well known as a good-natured handsome young man, 
and a very good waltzer, the only son of an Indian officer of large 
wealth, who chose to devote himself to painting, and who was sup- 
posed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his cousin the beautiful 
Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little tendre , and 
were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their houses 
in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to him 
may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own love 
affairs. 

When the first season ended without a declaration from my 
Lord, Lady Kew carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it 
also so happened that Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and 
people made what surmises they chose upon this coincidence. 
Surmises, why not? You who know the world, know very well 
that if you see Mrs. So-and-so’s name in the list of people at an 
entertainment, on looking down the list you will presently be sure 
to come on Mr. What-d’you-call-’em’s. If Lord and Lady Blank, of 
Such-and-such Castle, received a distinguished circle (including Lady 
Dash) for Christmas or Easter, without reading further the names 
of the guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk 
is one of the company. These coincidences happen every day, and 
some people are so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible 
is the magnetic sympathy I suppose, that they will travel hundreds 
of miles in the worst of weather to see their friends, and break 
your door open almost, provided the friend is inside it. 

I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew 
hunted after Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to 
Scotland, where, as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his 
Lordship : from Scotland she went to Paris, where he was taking 
lessons in dancing at the Chaumikre ; from Paris to an English 
country house for Christmas, where he was expected, but didn’t 
come — not being, his professor said, quite complete in the polka, 
and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manoeuvres, or anything 
more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose 
her from her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under 
her grandmother’s orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old 
woman, who exacted everybody’s obedience, and managed everybody’s 
business in her family. Lady Ann Newcome being in attendance 


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on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of Kew, 
her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her pro- 
perty when dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about 
with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a Secretary of 
State almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking any- 
body’s advice, or announcing her departure until within an hour or 
two of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, 
which would have led her to stay at home with her father, but at 
the special wish and order of her parents.. Was such a sum as that 
of which Lady Kew had the disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the 
amount of it quite well) to be left out of the family? Forbid it, 
all ye powers ! Barnes — who would have liked the money himself, 
and said truly that he would live with his grandmother anywhere 
she liked if he could get it, — Barnes joined most energetically with 
Sir Brian and Lady Ann in ordering Ethel’s obedience to Lady 
Kew. You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to 
acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope 
there was a good excuse for the queen of this history, and that it 
was her wicked domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. 
Otherwise, I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think 
of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world, to 
occupy it ! — of a brave intellect, and the milliner’s bandboxes, and 
the scandal of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the 
Court for its sole exercise ! of the rush and hurry from entertain- 
ment to entertainment ; of the constant smiles and cares of repre- 
sentation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a 
godless morrow ! This was the course of life to which Fate, and 
not her own fault altogether, had for a while handed over Ethel 
Newcome. Let those pity her who can feel their own weakness 
and misgoing ; let those punish her who are without fault them- 
selves. 

Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland. He knew quite 
well that the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest ; 
that as a relation she received him frankly and kindly enough, but 
checked him when he would have adopted another character. But 
it chanced that they met in Paris, whither he w T ent in the Easter 
of the ensuing year, having worked to some good purpose through 
the winter, and despatched, as on a former occasion, his three or 
four pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition. 

Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate, to 
some extent, Mr. F. Bay ham’s favourable report. Fancy sketches 
and historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having con- 
vinced himself either that he had not an epic genius, or that to 
draw portraits of his friends was a much easier task than that 


THE NEWCOMES 


479 

which he had set himself formerly. Whilst all the world was 
crowding round a pair of J. J.’s little pictures, a couple of chalk 
heads were admitted into the Exhibition (his great picture of 
Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must own, 
was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties had the 
pleasure of recognising in the miniature room No. 1246, “Portrait 
of an Officer,” — viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards 
Green, and “ Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman,” No. 1272. 
Miss Sherrick the hangers refused ; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, 
as usual, in the painting ; the chalk heads, however, before named, 
were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agree- 
able and spirited manner. F. Bayham’s criticism on these perform- 
ances, it need not be said, was tremendous. Since the days of 
Michael Angelo you would have thought there never had been 
such drawings. In fact, F. B., as some other critics do, clapped 
his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their merits 
with such prodigious energy, as to make his friends themselves 
sometimes uneasy. 

Mr. Clive — whose good father was writing home more and more 
wonderful accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had 
engaged, and who was always pressing his son to draw for more 
money — treated himself to comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very 
same hotel where the young Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings 
much more splendid, and where he lived, no doubt, so as to be near 
the professor, who was still teaching his Lordship the polka. 
Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh made great progress 
under this artist, and that he danced very much better in his third 
season than in the first and second years after he had come upon 
the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned the 
latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and 
phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French 
grammar was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner 
at Philippe’s, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney coachman 
with extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was 
received with the distinction which was his due by the French 
sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the houses of 
the French nobility which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de 
Farintosh excited considerable remark by the use of some of the 
phrases which his young professor had taught to him. People 
even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an awkward and 
dull young man, of the very worst manners. 

Whereas the young Clive Newcome — and it comforted the poor 
fellow’s heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was 
looking on at his triumphs — was voted the most charming young 


480 


THE NEWCOMES 


Englishman who had been seen for a long time in our salons. 
Madame de Florae, who loved him as a son of her own, actually 
went once or twice into the world in order to see his debut. 
Madame de Montcontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florae, 
and received society there. The French people did not understand 
what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord 
Farintosh’s French blunders. “ Monsieur Newcome is an artist ! 
What a noble career ! ” cries a great French lady, the wife of a 
M.arshal, to the astonished Miss Newcome. “ This young man is 
the cousin of the charming mees? You must be proud to possess 
such a nephew, madame ! ” says another French lady to the 
Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such 
a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her receptions 
expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. 
Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame 
de Florae’s salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome. 
She takes the boy’s hand and says, “ J’ai votre secret, mon ami ” ; 
and her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as 
ever they looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, 
gentle eyes ! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender heart ! If love 
lives through all life ; and survives through all sorrow ; and 
remains steadfast with us through all changes ; and in all darkness 
of spirit burns brightly ; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and 
loves still equally ; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of 
the faithful bosom — whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond 
death ; surely it shall be immortal ! Though we who remain are 
separated from it, is it not ours in heaven 1 If we still love those 
we lose, can we altogether lose those we love 1 Forty years have 
passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope 
almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds 
the young man’s hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome. 


CHAPTER XL VI 


THE HOTEL .. DE FLORAC 

S INCE the of the Due d’lvry, the husband of Mary, 

Queen of See s, the Comte de Florae, who is now the 
legitim a tr: ow ;r of the ducal title, does not choose to bear 
it, but continues t < be known in the world by his old name. 
The old founts vorld is very small. His doctor, and his director, 
who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his daughter’s 
children, whe amuse him by their laughter, and play round his 
chair in the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two 
friends as o’d as himself, form his society. His son the Abb^ is 
with them out seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens 
his old father, who can little comprehend the religionism of the 
new schoqC After going to hear his son preach through Lent 
at Notre Dame where the Abbd de Florae gathered a great 
congregation, the old Count came away quite puzzled at his son’s 
declamations. ‘I do not understand your new priests,” he says; 
“ I kuev my c on had become a Cordelier ; I went to hear him, 
and fourd he. was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my 
good LAmore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at 
trictrac into the bargain w 7 ith me.” Our history has but little to 
d( with tiiis venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out 
into tbo garden of his hotel; his faithful old domestic to wait upon 
him : )is House of Peers to attend -when he is well enough ; his few 
acquaint® to help him to pass the evening. The rest of the 
hote’ : 5 up to his son, the Vicomte de Florae, and Madame 

la ■' de Montcontour, his daughter-in-law. 

lV T h ui Plorac has told his friends of the Club why it is he 
lias ms on* 1 a new title — as a means of reconciliation (a reconcilia- 
tion all ] lilosophical, my friends) with his wife, nee Higg of 
Mai ;hes -, who adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently 
made a *eat succession, everybody allows that the measure was 
dictated bV prudence, and there is no more laughter at his change 
of xiame. The Princess takes the first floor of the hotel at the 
price paid For it by the American General, who has returned to his 
original pik at Cincinnati. Had not Cincinnatus himself pigs on 
8 2 H 


482 


THE NEWCOMES 


his farm, and was he not a general and member of Congress too ? 
The honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to her terror, she is 
obliged to open of reception evenings, when gentlemen and ladies 
play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of Louis XVI. In 
her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco cupids : 
under an alcove in which some powdered Venus, before the 
Revolution, might have reposed. Opposite that looking-glass, 
between the tall windows, at some forty feet distance, is another 
huge mirror, so that when the poor Princess is in bed, in her prim 
old curl-papers, she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling 
away into the dark perspective ; and is so frightened that she and 
Betsy, her Lancashire maid, pin up the jonquil silk curtains over 
the bed-mirror after the first night ; though the Princess never can 
get it out of her head that her image is still there, behind the 
jonquil hangings, turning as she turns, waking as she wakes, &c. 
The chamber is so vast and lonely that she has a bed made for 
Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked away into a closet on 
reception evenings. A boudoir, rose-tendre, with more cupids and 
nymphs, by Boucher, sporting over the door-panels — nymphs who 
may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress — is the Princess’s 
morning-room. “Ah, mum, what would Mr. Humper at Man- 
chester, Mr. Jowls of Xewcome ” (the minister whom, in sarly days, 
Miss Higg used to sit under) “say if they was browl into this 
room ! ” But there is no question of Mr. Jowls and Mr. Humper, 
excellent dissenting divines, who preached to Miss Higg, being 
brought into the Princesse de Montcon tour’s boudoir. 

That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which 
F. B. in his enthusiasm inserted in the Pall Mall Gazette caused 
no small excitement in the Florae family. The Florae family read 
the Pall Mall Gazette , knowing that Clive’s friends were engiged in 
that periodical. When Madame de Florae, who did not often read 
newspapers, happened to cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph 
of F. B.’s, you may fancy with what a panic it filled the goed and 
pious lady. Her son become a Protestant ! After all the grief 
and trouble his wildness had occasioned to her, Paul forsak his 
religion ! But that her husband was so ill and aged as not bo be 
able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to London to 
rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her younger son, 
who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de 
Montcontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised 
by the visit of the Abb£ de Florae. 

As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abaidoning his 
religion, the mother’s kind heart was very speedily set at rest by 
her envoy. Far from Paul’s conversion to Protestantisn, the Abbd 


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483 


wrote home the most encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law’s 
precious dispositions. He had communications with Madame de 
Montcontour’s Anglican director, a man of not powerful mind, wrote 
M. l’Abbd, though of considerable repute for eloquence in his sect. 
The good dispositions of his sister-in-law were improved by the 
French clergyman, who could be most captivating and agreeable 
when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit reconciled the 
family to their English relative, in whom good-nature and many 
other good qualities were to be seen, now that there were hopes of 
reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Montcontour should 
come and inhabit the Hotel de Florae, at Paris : perhaps the Abb^ 
tempted the worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and 
advantages she would enjoy in that capital. She was presented 
at her own court by the French ambassadress of that day ; and was 
received at the Tuileries with a cordiality which flattered and 
pleased her. 

Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn 
presented to her august sovereign Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg, of 
Manchester, Mrs. Samuel Higg, of Newcome : the husbands of 
those ladies (the Princess’s brothers) also sporting a court-dress for 
the first time. Sam Higg’s neighbour, the member for Newcome, 
Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., was too ill to act as Higg’s sponsor 
before Majesty ; but Barnes Newcome was uncommonly civil to 
the two Lancashire gentlemen ; though their politics were different 
to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last election. 
Barnes took them to dine at a club, recommended his tailor, and 
sent Lady Clara Pulleyn to call on Mrs. Higg, who pronounced her 
to be a pretty young woman and most haffable. The Countess of 
Dorking would have been delighted to present these ladies had the 
Princess not luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson 
Newcomes were very civil to the Lancashire party, and entertained 
them splendidly at dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson them- 
selves went to court this year, the latter in a deputy-lieutenant’s 
uniform. 

If Barnes Newcome was so very civil to the Higg family, we 
may suppose he had good reason. The Higgs were very strong in 
Newcome, and it was advisable to conciliate them. They were very 
rich, and their account would not be disagreeable at the Bank. 
Madame de Montcontour’s — a large easy private account — would be 
more pleasant still. And, Hobson Brothers having entered largely 
into the Anglo-Continental Railway, whereof mention has been made, 
it was a bright thought of Barnes to place the Prince of Montcon- 
tour, &c.-&c., on the French Direction of the railway; and to take 
the princely prodigal down to Newcome with his new title, and 


484 


THE NEWCOMES 


reconcile him to his wife and the Higg family. Barnes, we may 
say, invented the principality : rescued the Yicomte de Florae out 
of his dirty lodgings in Leicester Square, and sent the Prince of 
Montcontour back to his worldly middle-aged wife again. The 
disagreeable dissenting days were over. A brilliant young curate 
of Doctor Bulders, who also wore long hair, straight waistcoats, and 
no shirt-collars, had already reconciled the Vicomtesse de Florae to 
the persuasion whereof the ministers are clad in that queer uniform. 
The landlord of their hotel in St. James’s got his wine from Sherrick, 
and sent his families to Lady Whittlesea’s chapel. The Bev. Charles 
Honeyman’s eloquence and amiability were appreciated by his new 
disciple — thus the historian has traced here step by step how all 
these people became acquainted. 

Sam Higg, whose name was very good on ’Change in Manchester 
and London, joined the direction of the Anglo-Continental. A 
brother had died lately, leaving his money amongst them, and his 
wealth had added considerably to Madame de Florae’s means ; his 
sister invested a portion of her capital in the railway in her 
husband’s name. The shares were at a premium, and gave a good 
dividend. The Prince de Montcontour took his place with great 
gravity at the Paris board, whither Barnes made frequent flying 
visits. The sense of capitalism sobered and dignified Paul de 
Florae : at the age of five-and-forty he was actually giving up being 
a young man, and was not ill pleased at having to enlarge his waist- 
coats, and to show a little grey in his mustachio. His errors were 
forgotten : he was bien vu by the Government. He might have 
had the Embassy Extraordinary to Queen Poniard ; but the health 
of Madame la Princesse was delicate. He paid his wife visits every 
morning, appeared at her parties and her opera-box, and was seen 
constantly with her in public. He gave quiet little dinners still, 
at which Clive was present sometimes ; and had a private door and 
key to his apartments, which were separated by all the dreary 
length of the reception rooms from the mirrored chamber and 
jonquil couch where the Princess and Betsy reposed. When some 
of his London friends visited Paris, he showed us these rooms, and 
introduced us duly to Madame la Princesse. He was as simple 
and as much at home in the midst of these splendours as in the 
dirty little lodgings in Leicester Square, where he painted his own 
boots, and cooked his herring over the tongs. As for Clive, he was 
the infant of the house ; Madame la Princesse could not resist his 
kind face, and Paul was as fond of him in his way as Paul’s mother 
in hers. Would he live at the Hotel de Florae'? “There was an 
excellent atelier in the pavilion, with a chamber for his servant. 
No ! you will be most at ease in apartments of your own. You 


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485 


will have here but the society of women. I do not rise till late ; 
and my affairs, my board, call me away for the greater part of the 
day. Thou wilt but be ennuyd to play trictrac with my old father. 
My mother waits on him. My sister au second is given up entirely 
to her children, who always have th epituite. Madame la Princesse 
is not amusing for a young man. Come and go when thou wilt, 
Clive, my gar^on, my son ; thy cover is laid. Wilt thou take the 
portraits of all the family ? Hast thou want of money ? I had at 
thy age and almost ever since, mon ami ; but now w T e swim in gold ; 
and when there is a louis in my purse, there are ten francs for 
thee.” To show his mother that he did not think of the Reformed 
Religion, Paul did not miss going to mass with her on Sunday. 
Sometimes Madame Paul w^ent too, between whom and her mother- 
in-law there could not be any liking, but there was now great 
civility. They saw each other once a day ; Madame Paul always 
paid her visit to the Comte de Florae ; and Betsy, her maid, made 
the old gentleman laugh by her briskness and talk. She brought 
back to her mistress the most wonderful stories which the old man 
told her about his doings during the emigration — before he married 
Madame la Comtesse — when he gave lessons in dancing, parbleu ! 
There was his fiddle still, a trophy of those old times. He chirped, 
and coughed, and sang in his cracked old voice, as he talked about 
them. “Lor bless you, mum,” says Betsy, “he must have been a 
terrible old man ! ” He remembered the times well enough, but the 
stories he sometimes told over twice or thrice in an hour. I am 
afraid he had not repented sufficiently of those wicked old times ; 
else why did he laugh and giggle so when he recalled them He 
would laugh and giggle till he was choked with his old cough ; and 
old Saint-Jean, his man, came and beat M. le Comte on the back, 
and made M. le Comte take a spoonful of his syrup. 

Between two such women as Madame de Florae and Lady Kew, 
of course, there could be little liking or sympathy. Religion, love, 
duty, the family, were the French lady’s constant occupation, — duty 
and the family, perhaps, Lady Kew’s aim too, — only the notions of 
duty were different in either person ; Lady Kew’s idea of duty to 
her relatives being to push them on in the world : Madame de 
Florae’s to soothe, to pray, to attend them with constant watchful- 
ness, to strive to mend them with pious counsel. I don’t know 
that one lady was happier than the other. Madame de Florae’s 
eldest son was a kindly prodigal : her second had given his whole 
heart to the Church ; her daughter had centred hers on her own 
children, and was jealous if their grandmother laid a finger on them. 
So Ldonore de Florae was quite alone. It seemed as if Heaven had 
turned away all her children’s hearts from her. Her daily business 


486 


THE NEWCOMES 


in life was to nurse a selfish old man, into whose service she had 
been forced in early youth, by a paternal decree which she never 
questioned; giving him obedience, striving to give him respect, — 
everything but her heart, which had gone out of her keeping. 
Many a good woman’s life is no more cheerful ; a spring of beauty, 
a little warmth and sunshine of love, a bitter disappointment, 
followed by pangs and frantic tears, then a long monotonous story 
of submission. “Not here, my daughter, is to be your happiness,” 
says the priest ; “ whom Heaven loves it afflicts.” And he points 
out to her the agonies of suffering saints of her sex ; assures her of 
their present beatitudes and glories ; exhorts her to bear her pains 
with a faith like theirs; and is empowered to promise her a like 
reward. 

The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are 
dead, without a tear for either, — to weep was not in Lady Kew’s 
nature. Her grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than 
any human being, is rebellious and estranged from her ; her children 
separated from her, save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity 
the mother resents as disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes 
fail somehow. She moves from town to town, and ball to ball, 
and hall to castle, for ever uneasy and always alone. She sees 
people scared at her coming ; is received by sufferance and fear 
rather than by welcome ; likes perhaps the terror which she inspires, 
and to enter over the breach rather than through the hospitable gate. 
She will try and command wherever she goes ; and trample over 
dependants and society, with a grim consciousness that it dislikes 
her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbending will to domineer. 
To be old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the world — that 
is her lot in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble the 
bird which the fables say feeds her young with her blood; this 
one, if she has a little natural liking for her brood, goes hunting 
hither and thither and robs meat for them. And so, I suppose, 
to make the simile good, we must compare the Marquis of Farintosh 
to a lamb for the nonce, and Miss Ethel Newcome to a young 
eaglet. Is it not a rare provision of nature (or fiction of poets, 
who have their own natural history), that the strong-winged bird 
can soar to the sun and gaze at it, and then come down from heaven 
and pounce on a piece of carrion 1 

After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame 
de Florae was very interested about Ethel Newcome, and strove 
in her modest way to become intimate with her. Miss Newcome 
and Lady Kew attended Madame de Montcontour’s Wednesday 
evenings. “It is as well, my dear, for the interests of the family 
that we should be particularly civil to these people,” Lady Kew 


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487 


said ; and accordingly she came to the Hotel de Florae, and was 
perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse every Wednesday evening. 
Towards Madame de Florae even Lady Kew could not be rude. 
She was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault : Lady Kew 
vouchsafed to pronounce that Madame de Florae was “ trks-grande 
dame,” — “of the sort which is almost impossible to find nowadays,” 
Lady Kew said, who thought she possessed this dignity in her own 
person. When Madame de Florae, blushing, asked Ethel to come 
and see her, Ethel’s grandmother consented with the utmost 
willingness. “ She is very devote , I have heard, and will try and 
convert you. Of course you will hold your own about that sort 
of thing; and have the good sense to keep off theology. There 
is no Roman Catholic parti in England or Scotland that is to 
be thought of for a moment. You will see they will marry young 
Lord Derwentwater to an Italian Princess ; but he is only seventeen, 
and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew Fawkes 
will have a fine property when Lord Campion dies, unless Lord 
Campion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is — and, 
of the other families, who is there ? I made every inquiry purposely 
— that is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as 
about one’s own people : and little Mr. Rood, who was one of my 
poor brother Steyne’s lawyers, told me there is not one young man 
of that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. 
Be very civil to Madame de Florae; she sees some of the old legitimists, 
and you know I am brouillee with that party of late years.” 

“ There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for 
France,” said Ethel gravely ; “ he has a hump-back, but he is very 
spiritual. Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the 
other night, and even asked George Barnes what my dot was. He 
is a widower, and has a wig and two daughters. Which do you 
think would be the greatest incumbrance, grandmamma, — a hump- 
back, or a wig and two daughters ? I like Madame de Florae ; for 
the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de 
Montcontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please.” 

So Ethel went to see Madame de Florae. She was very kind 
to Madame de I’rdville’s children, Madame de Florae’s grandchildren ; 
she was gay and gracious with Madame de Montcontour. She went 
again and again to the Hotel de Florae, not caring for Lady Kew’s 
own circle of statesmen and diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and 
French, whose talk about the courts of Europe, — who was in favour at 
St. Petersburg, and who was in disgrace at Schoenbrunn — naturally 
did not amuse the lively young person. The goodness of Madame de 
Florae’s life the tranquil grace and melancholy kindness with which 
the French lady received her, soothed and pleased Miss Ethel. She 


488 


THE NEWCOMES 


came and reposed in Madame de Florae’s quiet chamber, or sat in the 
shade in the sober old garden of her hotel ; away from all the trouble 
and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering 
ceremonial of the Parisian ladies’ visits in their fine toilettes, the 
fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old 
statesmen who frequented her grandmother’s apartment. The world 
began for her at night ; when she went in the train of the old Countess 
from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz with Prussian and 
Neapolitan secretaries, with princes, officers of ordonnance, — with 
personages even more lofty very likely, — for the court of the Citizen 
King was then in its splendour ; and there must surely have been 
a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance 
with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh 
had a share in these polite amusements. His English conversation 
was not brilliant as yet, although his French was eccentric ; but at 
the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform of the Scottish 
Archers, or in his native Glenlivat tartan, there certainly was not 
in his own or the public estimation a handsomer young nobleman in 
Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly improved 
in dancing ; and for a young man of his age his whiskers were really 
extraordinarily large and curly. 

Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother’s strange 
antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman 
by the name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hotel de Florae. 
At first, with her French education, Madame de Florae never would 
have thought of allowing the cousins to meet in her house ; but 
with the English it was different. Paul assured her that in the 
English chateau, les meess walked for entire hours with the young 
men, made parties of the fish, mounted to horse with them, the 
whole with the permission of the mothers. “ When I was at 
Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several times,” Paul said ; “a 
preuve that we went to visit an old relation of the family, who 
adores Clive and his father.” When Madame de Florae questioned 
her son about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel was 
engaged, Florae flouted the idea. “ Engaged ! This young Marquis 
is engaged to the Theatre des Varies, my mother. He laughs at 
the notion of an engagement. When one charged him with it of 
late at the club ; and asked how Mademoiselle Louqsor — she is so 
tall, that they call her the Louqsor — she is an Odalisque Obelisque , 
ma mhre; when one asked how the Louqsor would pardon his 
pursuit of Miss Newcome 1 ? my Ecossais permitted himself to say 
in full club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued him, — that nymph, 
that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature ! On which, 
as the others laughed, and his friend Monsieur Walleye applauded, 


THE NEWCOMES 


489 


I dared to say in my turn, ‘ Monsieur le Marquis, as a young man 
not familiar with our language, you have said what is not true, 
milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honour 
to count of my friends the parents of the young lady of whom you 
have spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young 
miss who lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient 
to them, whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door 
your carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which 
you charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in 
the coulisses of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our lan- 
guage ; not of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh ! 
Learn to respect your compatriots ; to honour youth and innocence 
everywhere, monsieur ! — and when you forget yourself, permit one 
who might be your father to point where you are wrong.’ ” 

“And what did he answer 1 ?” asked the Countess. 

“ I attended myself to a soufflet” replied Florae ; “ but his reply 
was much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes, 
and a gros juron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to 
say a word against that person. ‘Of whom the name,’ cried I, 
‘ought never to be spoken in these places.’ Herewith our little 
dispute ended.” 

So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his 
cousin at the Hotel de Florae, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants 
wished he should have his desire regarding this young lady. The 
Colonel had talked early to Madame de Florae about this wish of 
his life, impossible then to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to 
Lord Kew. Clive, in the fulness of his heart, imparted his passion 
to Florae, and in answer to Paul’s offer to himself, had shown the 
Frenchman that kind letter in which his father bade him carry aid 
to “ L^onore de Florae’s son,” in case he should need it. The case 
was all clear to the lively Paul. “ Between my mother and your good 
Colonel there must have been an affair of the heart in the early days 
during the emigration.” Clive owned his father had told him as 
much, at least that he himself had been attached to Mademoiselle 
de Blois. “ It is for that that her heart yearns towards thee, that 
I have felt myself entrained towards thee since I saw thee ” — Clive 
momentarily expected to be kissed again. “Tell thy father that I 
feel — am touched by his goodness with an eternal gratitude, and 
love every one that loves my mother.” As far as wishes went, these 
two were eager promoters of Clive’s little love affair ; and Madame 
la Princesse became equally not less willing. Clive’s good looks and 
good-nature had had their effects upon that good-natured woman, 
and he was as great a favourite with her as with her husband. 
And thus it happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her visit, 


490 


THE NEW COMES 


and sat with Madame de Florae and her grandchildren in the 
garden, Mr. Newcome would sometimes walk up the avenue there, 
and salute the ladies. 

If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come'? 
Yes ; she used to say she was going to Madame de Prdville’s, not 
to Madame de Florae’s, and would insist, I have no doubt, that it 
was Madame de Prdville whom she went to see (whose husband 
was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a Conseiller d’Fltat, or 
other French bigwig), and that she had no idea of going to meet 
Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at the Hotel 
de Florae. There was no part of her conduct in all her life which 
this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than 
this intimacy at the Hotel de Florae. It is not with this I quarrel 
especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen of 
seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a friend- 
ship for Emma Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkinses’, 
and notes were constantly passing between your house and hers 1 ? 
When her brother, Paget Tomkins, returned to India, did not your 
intimacy with Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the 
room, I know you will own as much to me. I think you are always 
deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the motive you put 
forward is very often not the real one ; though you will confess, 
neither to yourself, nor to any human being, what the real motive 
is. I think that what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in 
your way as your bearded fellow-creatures are. And as for the 
truth being in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I 
protest there are but — never mind. A perfectly honest woman, a 
woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, 
who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates 
on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken 
admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be ! Miss 
Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old ; you 
worked on your papa’s friends in the nurse’s arms by the fascination 
of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes ; when you could 
just toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the 
square, poor little lambkins sporting among the daisies ; and nunc 
in ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones, proceeding from the lambs to 
reluctant dragoons, you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, 
who behaved so ill, and went to India without — without making 
those proposals which of course you never expected. Your intimacy 
was with Emma. It has cooled. Your sets are different. The 
Tomkinses are not quite, &c. &c. You believe Captain Tomkins 
married a Miss O’Grady, &c. &c. Ah, my pretty, my sprightly 
Mis3 Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your neighbours ! 


CHAPTER XLVII 


CONTAINS TITO OR THREE ACTS OF A LITTLE COMEDY 
IiL this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually 



present at the circumstances here narrated, yet had informa- 


1 *• tion concerning them, and could supply such a narrative of 

facts and conversations as is, indeed, not less authentic than the 
details we have of other histories. How can I tell the feelings in 
a young lady’s mind ; the thoughts in a young gentleman’s bosom ? 
— As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a fragment of a 
bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it, wallowing 
in primaeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of plants 
that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal by 
this time — so the novelist puts this and that together : from the 
footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; 
from the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he 
swam — and thus, in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the 
habits, size, appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat; — 
traces this slimy reptile through the mud, and describes his habits 
filthy and rapacious ; prods down his butterfly with a pin, and 
depicts his beautiful coat and embroidered waistcoat ; points out 
the singular structure of yonder more important animal, the 
megatherium of his history. 

Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hotel de Florae, 
two young people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime 
trees, which are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In 
the centre of that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so 
grey and moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling 
lips, curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a 
sinecure for at least fifty years ; and did not think fit even to play 
when the Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from 
their exile. At the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed 
damp Faun, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties 
which I believe never had any tune. The perron of the hotel is at 
the other end of the avenue ; a couple of Caesars on either side of the 
door-window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the 
garden — Caracalla frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on 


492 


THE NEWCOMES 


to whose clipped hair the roofs of the grey chateau have been 
dribbling for ever so many long years. There are more statues 
gracing this noble place. There is Cupid, who has been at the 
point of kissing Psyche this half-century at least, though the 
delicious event has never come off through all those blazing summers 
and dreary winters ; there is Venus and her Boy under the damp 
little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the alley of this 
old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in hoops and 
powder, Monsieur de Florae’s chair is wheeled by Saint- Jean, his 
attendant ; Madame de Prdville’s children trot about, and skip, and 
play at cache-cache. The It. P. de Florae (when at home) paces 
up and down and meditates his sermons ; Madame de Florae sadly 
walks sometimes- to look at her roses ; and Clive and Ethel New- 
come are marching up and down ; the children, and their bonne of 
course, being there jumping to and fro ; and Madame de Florae, 
having just been called away to Monsieur le Comte, whose physician 
has come to see him. 

Ethel says, “ How charming and odd this solitude is ; and how 
pleasant to hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbour- 
ing convent garden ! ” of which they can see the new chapel rising 
over the trees. 

Clive remarks that “the neighbouring hotel has curiously 
changed its destination. One of the members of the Directory had 
it ; and, no doubt, in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and 
Madame Recamier, and Madame Beauharnais have danced under 
the lamps. Then a Marshal of the Empire inhabited it. Then it 
was restored to its legitimate owner, Monsieur le Marquis de 
Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a lawsuit about the 
Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the convent.” 

After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, “ There were convents 
in England. She often thinks she would like to retire to one;” 
and she sighs as if her heart were in that scheme. 

Clive, with a laugh, says, “Yes. If you could retire after the 
season, when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be 
very nice. At Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant’ 
Onofrio, that delightful old place where Tasso died : people go and 
make a retreat there. In the ladies’ convents, the ladies do the 
same thing — and he doubts whether they are much more or less 
wicked, after their retreat, than gentlemen and ladies in England or 
France.” 

Ethel. Why do you sneer at all faith 1 Why should not a 
retreat do people good 1 Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, 
that those who are in it never wish for a while to leave it ? (She 
heaves a sigh and looks down towards a beautiful new dress of 


THE NEWCOMES 493 

many flounces , which Madame de Flouncival , the great milliner , 
has sent her home that very day.) 

Clive. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. 
I am like the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within 
it. I live in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, which is not within 
the gates of Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies 
Street, leading out of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There’s 
another gate in Hay Hill : and another in Bruton Street, Bond 

Ethel. Don’t be a goose. 

Clive. Why not ? It is as good to be a goose as to be # a lady — 
no, a gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, 
a Marquis, a Duke, would you say Goose 1 ? No, you would say 
Swan. 

Ethel. Unkind and unjust ! — ungenerous to make taunts which 
common people make : and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms 
which your low Radical literary friends are always putting in their 
books! Have I ever made any difference to you 'l Would I not 
sooner see you than the fine people? Would I talk with you or 
with the young dandies most willingly ? Are we not of the same 
blood, Clive ? and of all the grandees I see about, can there be a 
grander gentleman than your dear old father? You need not 

squeeze my hand so. — Those little imps are look that has 

nothing to do with the question. Viens, Ldonore ! Tu connais 
bien monsieur, n’est-ce pas ? qui te fait de si jobs dessins ? 

Leonore. Ah, oui ! Vous m’en ferez toujours, n’est-ce pas, 
Monsieur Clive? des chevaux, et puis de petites filles avec leurs 
gouvernantes, et puis des maisons — et puis — et puis des maisons 
encore — ou est bonne maman ? 

[ Exit little LkoNOKE down an alley. 

Ethel. Do you remember when we were children, and you used 
to make drawings for us ? I have some now that you did — in my 
geography book, which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley. 

Clive. I remember all about our youth, Ethel. 

Ethel. Tell me what you remember. 

Clive. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I 
had been reading the “ Arabian Nights ” at school — and you came 
in in a bright dress of shot silk, amber and blue — and I thought 
you were like that fairy princess who came out of the crystal box 
— because 

Ethel. Because why ? 

Clive. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be 
the most beautiful creature in all the world — that is “why and 
because.” Do not make me Mayfair curtseys. You know whether 
you are good-looking or not; and how long I have thought you 


494 


THE NEWCOMES 


so. I remember when I thought I would like to be Ethel’s knight, 
and that if there was anything she would have me do, I would 
try and achieve it in order to please her. I remember when I 
was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference in rank 
between us. 

Ethel. Ah, Clive ! 

Clive. Now it is altered. Now I know the difference between 
a poor painter and a young lady of the world. Why haven’t I a 
title and a great fortune ? Why did I ever see you, Ethel ; or, 
knowing the distance which it seems fate has placed between us, 
why have I seen you again ? 

Ethel ( innocently ). Have I ever made any difference between 
us ? Whenever I may see you, am I not too glad ? Don’t I see 
you sometimes when I should not — no — I do not say when I 
should not ; but when others, whom I am bound to obey, forbid 
me? What harm is there in my remembering old days? Why 
should I be ashamed of our relationship 1 — no, not ashamed — why 
should I forget it? Don’t do that, sir, we have shaken hands 
twice already. Ldonore ! Xavier ! 

Clive. At one moment you like me : and at the next you seem 
to repent it. One day you seem happy when I come ; and another 
day you are ashamed of me. Last Tuesday, when you came with 
those fine ladies to the Louvre, you seemed to blush when you saw 
me copying at my picture ; and that stupid young lord looked quite 
alarmed because you spoke to me. My lot in life is not very 
brilliant ; but I would not change it against that young man’s — 
no, not with all his chances. 

Ethel. What do you mean, with all his chances ? 

Clive. You know very well. I mean I would not be as selfish, 
or dull, or as ill-educated — I won’t say worse of him — not to be 
as handsome, or as wealthy, or as noble as he is. I swear I would 
not now change my place against his, or give up being Clive New- 
come to be my Lord Marquis of Farintosh, with all his acres and 
titles of nobility. 

Ethel. Why are you for ever harping about Lord Farintosh 
and his titles? I thought it was only women who were jealous 
— you gentlemen say so. — ( Hurriedly .) — I am going to-night 
with grandmamma to the Minister of the Interior, and then 
to the Russian ball ; and to-morrow to the Tuileries. We dine 
at the Embassy first ; and on Sunday, I suppose, we shall go to 
the Rue d’Aguesseau. I can hardly come here before Mon — . 
Madame de Florae ! Little Leonore is very like you — resembles 
you very much. My cousin says he longs to make a drawing 
of her. 


THE NEW COMES 


495 


Madame de Florae. My husband always likes that I should 
be present at his dinner. Pardon me, young people, that I have 
been away from you for a moment. 

[Exeunt Clive, Ethel, and Madame De F. into the 
house. 

CONVEKSATION II. SCENE 1. 

Miss Newcome arrives in Lady Few's carriage , which enters the 
court of the Hotel de Florae. 

Saint-Jean. Mademoiselle — Madame la Comtesse is gone out : 
but madame has charged me to say, that she will be at home to 
the dinner of M. le Comte, as to the ordinary. 

Miss Newcome. Madame de Prdville is at home ? 

Saint-Jean. Pardon me, madame is gone out with M. le Baron, 
and M. Xavier, and Mademoiselle de Prdville. They are gone, 
miss, I believe, to visit the parents of Monsieur le Baron ; of whom 
it is probably to-day the fete : for Mademoiselle L^onore carried a 
bouquet — no doubt for her grandpapa. Will it please mademoiselle 
to enter 1 ? I think monsieur the Count sounds me. ( Bell rings.) 

Miss Neivcome. Madame la Prince — Madame la Yicomtesse is 
at home ? Monsieur Saint- Jean ! 

Saint- Jean. I go to call the people of Madame la Yicomtesse. 

[Exit old Saint- Jean : a Lackey comes presently 
in a gorgeous livery , with buttons like little 
cheese-plates. 

The Lackey. The Princess is at home, miss, and will be most 
’appy to see you, miss. (Miss trips up the great stair : a gentle- 
man out of livery has come forth to the landing and introduces 
her to the apartments of Madame la Princesse.) 

The Lackey (to the Servants on the box). Good morning, 
Thomas. How dy’ do, old Backy stopper ? 

Backystopper. How de do, Jim? I say, you couldn’t give 
a feller a drink of beer, could yer, Muncontour? It was precious 
wet last night, I can tell you. ’Ad to stop for three hours at the 
Napolitum Embassy, where w’e was a dancing. Me and some 
chaps went into Bob Parsom’s and had a drain. Old Cat came 
out and couldn’t find her carriage, not by no means, could she, 
Tommy ? Blest if I didn’t nearly drive her into a wegetable cart. 
I was so uncommon scruey ! Who’s this a hentering at your pot- 
coshare ? Billy, my fine feller ! 

Clive Newcome (by the most singular coincidence). Madame 
la Princesse? 


496 


THE NEWCOMES 


Lackey. We, munseer. (He rings a bell : the gentleman in 
black appears as before on the landing-place up the stair.) 

[Exit Clive. 

Backy stopper. I say, Bill : is that young chap often a coming 
about here? They’d run pretty in a curricle, wouldn’t they? 
Miss N. and Master N. Quiet, old woman ! Jest look to that 
mare’s ’ead, will you, Billy? He’s a fine young feller, that is. 
He gave me a sovering the other night. Whenever I sor him in 
the Park, he was always riding an ’ansum hanimal. What is he? 
They said in our ’all he was a hartis. I can ’ardly think that. 
Why, there used to be a hartis come to our club, and painted two 
or three of my ’osses, and my old woman too. 

Lackey. There’s hartises and hartises, Backystopper. Why, 
there’s some on ’em comes here with more stars on their coats 
than Dukes has got. Have you never eard of Mossy er Vemy, 
or Mossyer Gudang? 

Backy stopj)er. They say this young gent is sweet on Miss N. ; 
which I guess I wish he may get it. 

Tommy. He ! he ! he ! 

Backystopper. Brayvo, Tommy. Tom ain’t much of a man 
for conversation, but he’s a precious one to drink. Do you think 
the young gent is sweet on her, Tommy ? I sor him often prowling 
about our ’ouse in Queen Street, when we was in London. 

Tommy. I guess he wasn’t let in in Queen Street. I guess 
hour little Buttons was very near turned away for saying we 
was at home to him. I guess a footman’s place is to keep his 
mouth hopen — no, his heyes hopen — and his mouth shut. (He 
lapses into silence.) 

Lackey. I think Thomis is in love, Thomis is. Who was 
that young woman I saw you a dancing of at the Showmier, 
Thomis ? How the young Marquis was a cuttin’ of it about there ! 
The pleace was obliged to come up and stop him dancing. His 
man told old Buzfuz upstairs that the Marquis’s goings on is 
hawful. Up till four or five every morning; blind hookey, 
shampaign, the dooce’s own delight. That party have had I don’t 
know how much in diamonds, and they quarrel and swear at each 
other, and fling plates : it’s tremendous. 

Tommy. Why doesn’t the Marquis’s man mind his own affairs ? 
He’s a supersellious beast : and will no more speak to a man, 
except he’s out-a-livery, than he would to a chimbly swip. He ! 
Cuss him, I’d fight ’im for ’alf-a-crown. 

Lackey. And we’d back you, Tommy. Buzfuz upstairs ain’t 
supersellious ; nor is the Prince’s walet nether. That old Sang- 
jang’s a rum old guvnor. He was in England with the Count, 


THE NEW COMES 


497 

fifty years ago — in the Immigration — in Queen Hann’s time, you 
know. He used to support the old Count. He says he remembers 
a young Musseer Newcome then, that used to take lessons from 
the Shevallier, the Countess’s father — there’s my bell. 

[Exit Lackey. 

Backy stopper. Not a bad chap that. Sports his money very 
free — sings an uncommon good song. 

Thomas. Pretty voice, but no cultiwation. 

Lackey ( who re-enters). Be here at two o’clock for Miss N. 
Take anything? Come round the corner. — there’s a capital shop 
round the corner. [. Exeunt Servants. 


Scene 2 

Ethel. I can’t think where Madame de Montcontour has gone. 
How very odd it was that you should come here — that we should 
both come here to-day ! How surprised I was to see you at the 
Minister’s ! Grandmamma was so angry ! “ That boy pursues us 

wherever we go,” she said. I am sure I don’t know why we 
shouldn’t meet, Clive. It seems to be wrong even my seeing 
you by chance here. Do you know, sir, what a scolding I had 
about — about going to Brighton with you % My grandmother did 
not hear of it till we were in Scotland, when that foolish maid 
of mine talked of it to her maid ; and there was oh, such a tempest ! 
If there were a Bastile here, she would like to lock you into it. 
She says that you are always upon our way — I don’t know how, I 
am sure. She says, but for you I should have been — you know 
what I should have been : but I am thankful that I wasn’t, and 
Kew has got a much nicer wife in Henrietta Pulleyn, than I could 
ever have been to him. She will be happier than Clara, Clive. 
Kew is one of the kindest creatures in the world — not very wise ; 
not very strong : but he is just such a kind, easy, generous little 
man, as will make a girl like Henrietta quite happy. 

Clive. But not you, Ethel % 

Ethel. No, nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I 
fear few men would bear with me. I feel, somehow, always very 
lonely. How old am I ? Twenty — I feel sometimes as if I was 
a hundred ; and in the midst of all these admirations and fetes and 
flatteries, so tired, oh, so tired ! And yet if I don’t have them, I 
miss them. How I wish I was religious like Madame de Florae ! 
there is no day that she does not go to church. She is for ever 
busy with charities, clergymen, conversions ; I think the Princess 
will be brought over ere long — that dear old Madame de Florae ! 
and yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Hortense is an 
8 2 i 


498 


THE NEWCOMES 


empty little tiling, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with 
spectacles, and of her two children, and of nothing else in the world 
besides. Who is happy, Clive ? 

Clive. You say Barnes’s wife is not. 

Ethel. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. 
Barnes is very cruel to her. At Newcome, last winter, poor Clara 
used to come into my room with tears in her eyes morning after 
morning. He calls her a fool; and seems to take a pride in 
humiliating her before company. My poor father has luckily taken 
a great liking to her : and before him, for he has grown very very 
hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes leaves poor Clara alone. We 
were in hopes that the baby might make matters better, but as it 
is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very much disappointed. He 
wants papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but he clings to that 
more than anything. Oh dear me ! who is happy in the world ? 
What a pity Lord Highgate’s father had not died sooner ! He and 
Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother’s spirit did not 
revolt against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money 
at the bank, I believe ; and the present one does so still ; he has 
paid all his debts off; and Barnes is actually friends with him. 
He is always abusing the Dorkings, who want to borrow money 
from the bank, he says. This eagerness for money is horrible. 
If I had been Barnes I would never have been reconciled with Mr. 
Belsize, never, never ! And yet they say he was quite right ; and 
grandmamma is even pleased that Lord Highgate should be asked 
to dine in Park Lane. Poor papa is there : come to attend his 
parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went jto a division the other 
night ; and was actually lifted out of his carriage and wheeled into 
the lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for coming. I 
believe he thinks he will have his peerage yet. Oh, what a life of 
vanity ours is ! 

Enter Madame de Montcontour. What are you young folks a 
talkin’ about — Balls and Operas? When first I was took to the 
Opera I did not like it — and fell asleep. But now, oh, it’s ’eavenly 
to hear Grisi sing ! 

The Clock. Ting, Ting ! 

Ethel. Two o’clock already ! I must run back to grand- 
mamma. Good-bye, Madame de Montcontour; I am so sorry I 
have not been able to see dear Madame de Florae. I will try and 
come to her on Thursday — please tell her. Shall we meet you at 
the American Minister’s to-night, or at Madame de Brie’s to- 
morrow? Friday is your own night — I hope grandmamma will 
bring me. How charming your last music was ! Good-bye, mon 
cousin ! You shall not come downstairs with me, I insist upon it, 


THE NEWCOMES 499 

sir : and had much best remain here, and finish your drawing of 
Madame de Montcontour. 

Princess. I’ve put on the velvet, you see, Clive — though it’s 
very ’ot in May. Good-bye, my dear. [Exit Ethel. 

As far as we can judge from the above conversation, which we 
need not prolong — as the talk between Madame de Montcontour 
and Monsieur Clive, after a few complimentary remarks about 
Ethel, had nothing to do with the history of the Newcomes — as 
far as we can judge, the above little colloquy took place on 
Monday, and about Wednesday, Madame la Comtesse de Florae 
received a little note from Clive, in which he said, that one day, 
when she came to the Louvre, where he was copying, she had 
admired a picture of a Virgin and Child, by Sasso Ferrato, since 
when he had been occupied in making a water-colour drawing after 
the picture, and hoped she would be pleased to accept the copy from 
her affectionate and grateful servant, Clive Newcome. The drawing 
would be done the next day, when he would call with it in his 
hand. Of course Madame de Florae received this announcement 
very kindly ; and sent back by Clive’s servant a note of thanks to 
that young gentleman. 

Now, on Thursday morning, about one o’clock, by one of those 
singular coincidences which, &c. &c., who should come to the 
Hotel de Florae but Miss Ethel Newcome? Madame la Comtesse 
was at home, waiting to receive Clive and his picture; but Miss 
Ethel’s appearance frightened the good lady, so much so that she 
felt quite guilty at seeing the girl, whose parents might think — I 
don’t know what they might not think — that Madame de Florae 
was trying to make a match between the young people. Hence 
arose the words, uttered by the Countess, after a while, in 

Conversation III. 

Madame de Florae (at work). And so you like to quit the 
world, and come to our triste old hotel? After to-day you will 
find it still more melancholy, my poor child. 

Ethel. And why ? 

Madame de F. Some one who has been here to egayer our 
little meetings will come no more. 

Ethel. Is the Abbd de Florae going to quit Paris, madame ? 

Madame de F. It is not of him that I speak, thou knowest it 
very well, my daughter. Thou hast seen my poor Clive twice 
here. He will come once again, and then no more. My conscience 
reproaches me that I have admitted him at all. But he is like a 
son to me, and was so confided to me by his father. Five years 


500 


THE NEWCOMES 


ago, when we met, after an absence — of how many years — Colonel 
Newcome told me what hopes he had cherished for his boy. You 
know well, my daughter, with whom those hopes were connected. 
Then he wrote me that family arrangements rendered his plans 
impossible — that the hand of Miss Newcome was promised else- 
where. When I heard from my son Paul how these negotiations 
were broken, my heart rejoiced, Ethel, for my friend’s sake. I am 
an old woman now, who have seen the world, and all sorts of men. 
Men more brilliant, no doubt, I have known ; but such a heart as 
his, such a faith as his, such a generosity and simplicity as Thomas 
Newcome’s — never ! 

Ethel {smiling). Indeed, dear lady, I think with you. 

Madame de F. I understand thy smile, my daughter. I can 
say to thee, that when we were children almost, I knew thy good 
uncle. My poor father took the pride of his family into exile with 
him. Our poverty only made his pride the greater. Even before 
the emigration a contract had been passed between our family and 
the Count de Florae. I could not be wanting to the word given by 
my father. For how many long years have I kept it ! But when 
I see a young girl who may be made the victim — the subject of a 
marriage of convenience, as I was — my heart pities her. And if I 
love her, as I love you, I tell her my thoughts. Better poverty, 
Ethel — better a cell in a convent, than a union without love. Is it 
written eternally that men are to make slaves of us? Here in 
France, above all, our fathers sell us every day. And what a 
society ours is ! Thou wilt know this when thou art married. 
There are some laws so cruel that nature revolts against them, and 
breaks them — or we die in keeping them. You smile — I have been 
nearly fifty years dying — n'est-ce pas ? — and am here an old woman, 
complaining to a young girl. It is because our recollections of 
youth are always young; and because I have suffered so, that I 
would spare those I love a like grief. Do you know that the 
children of those who do not love in marriage seem to bear an 
hereditary coldness, and do not love their parents as other children 
do? They witness our differences and our indifferences, hear our 
recriminations, take one side or the other in our disputes, and are 
partisans for father or mother. We force ourselves to be hypocrites, 
and hide our wrongs from them ; we speak of a bad father with 
false praises ; we wear feigned smiles over our tears, and deceive 
our children — deceive them, do we ? Even from the exercise of 
that pious deceit there is no woman but suffers in the estimation of 
her sons. They may shield her as champions against their father’s 
selfishness or cruelty. In this case, what a war ! What a home, 
where the son sees a tyrant in the father, and in the mother but a 


THE NEWCOMES 


501 


trembling victim ! I speak not for myself — whatever may have 
been the course of our long wedded, life, I have not to complain of 
these ignoble storms. But when the family chief neglects his wife, 
or prefers another to her, the children too, courtiers as we are, will 
desert her. You look incredulous about domestic love. Tenez, my 
child, if I may so surmise, I think you cannot have seen it. 

Ethel ( blushing , and thinking , perhaps, how she esteems her 
father , how her mother , and how much they esteem each other). 
My father and mother have been most kind to all their children, 
madam ; and no one can say that their marriage has been otherwise 
than happy. My mother is the kindest and most affectionate 

mother, and ( Here a vision of Sir Brian alone in his room , 

and nobody really caring for him so much as his valet , who loves 
him to the extent of fifty pounds a year and perquisites ; or, 
perhaps, Miss Cann, who reads to him, and plays a good deal of 
evenings, much to Sir Brian’s liking — here this vision, we say, 
comes, and stops Miss Ethel’s sentence ). 

Madame de F. Your father, in his infirmity — and yet he is 
five years younger than Colonel Newcome — is happy to have such 
a wife and such children. They comfort his age ; they cheer his 
sickness ; they confide their griefs and pleasures to him — is it not 
so 1 His closing days are soothed by their affection. 

Ethel. Oh no, no ! And yet it is not his fault or ours that he 
is a stranger to us. He used to be all day at the bank, or at night 
in the House of Commons, or he and mamma went to parties, and 
we young ones remained with the governess. Mamma is very kind. 
I have never, almost, known her angry ; never with us ; about us, 
sometimes, with the servants. As children, we used to see papa 
and mamma at breakfast ; and then when she was dressing to go 
out. Since he has been ill, she has given up all parties. I wanted 
to do so too. I feel ashamed in the world, sometimes, when I 
think of my poor father at home alone. I wanted to stay, but my 
mother and my grandmother forbade me. Grandmamma has a 
fortune, which she says I am to have ; since then they have insisted 
on my being with her. She is very clever, you know ; she is kind 
too in her way ; but she cannot live out of society. And I, who 
pretend to revolt, I like it too ; and I, who rail and scorn flatterers 
— oh, I like admiration ! I am pleased when the women hate me, 
and the young men leave them for me. Though I despise many 
of these, yet I can’t help drawing them towards me. One or 
two of them I have seen unhappy about me, and I like it ; and if 
they are indifferent I am angry, and never tire till they come back. 

I love beautiful dresses ; I love fine jewels ; I love a great name 
and a fine house — oh, I despise myself, when I think of these things ! 


502 


THE NEWCOMES 


When I lie in bed, and say I have been heartless and a coquette, I 
cry with humiliation ; and then rebel and say, Why not ? — and to- 
night — yes, to-night — after leaving you, I shall be wicked, I know 
I shall. 

Madame de F. (sadly). One will pray for thee, my child. 

Ethel (sadly). I thought I might be good once. I used to say 
my own prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel 
ashamed — yes, ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say 
them, and next morning to be no better than you were last night ? 
Often I revolt at these as at other things, and am dumb. The 
Vicar comes to see us at Newcome, and eats so much dinner, and 
pays us such court, and “ Sir Brians ” papa, and “ Your Lady- 
ships” mamma. With grandmamma I go to hear a fashionable 
preacher — Clive’s uncle, whose sister lets lodgings at Brighton ; 
such a queer, bustling, pompous, honest old lady. Do you know 
that Clive’s aunt lets lodgings at Brighton ? 

Madame de F. My father was an usher in a school. Monsieur 
de Florae gave lessons in the emigration. Do you know in what ? 

Ethel. Oh, the old nobility ! that is different, you know. That 
Mr. Honeyman is so affected that I have no patience with him ! 

Madame de F. (with a sigh). I wish you could attend the 
services of a better church. And when was it you thought you 
might be good, Ethel 1 

Ethel. When I was a girl. Before I came out. When I used 
to take long rides with my dear Uncle Newcome ; and he used to 
talk to me in his sweet simple way ; and he said I reminded him 
of some one he once knew. 

Madame de F. Who— who was that, Ethel ? 

Ethel (looking up at Gerard’s picture of the Comtesse de 
Florae). What odd dresses you wore in the time of the Empire, 
Madame de Florae ! How could you ever have such high waists, 
and such wonderful /raises ! (Madame de Florac kisses Ethel. 
Tableau .) 

Enter Saint- Jean, preceding a gentleman with a drawing- 
board under his arm. 

Saint- Jean. Monsieur Claive ! [Exit Saint- Jean. 

Clive. How do you do, Madame la Comtesse? Mademoiselle, 
j’ai l’honneur de vous souhaiter le bon jour. 

Madame de F. Do you come from the Louvre? Have you 
finished that beautiful copy, mon ami ? 

Clive. I have brought it for you. It is not very good. There 
are always so many petites demoiselles copying that Sasso Ferrato ; 
and they chatter about it so, and hop from one easel to another ; 
and the young artists are always coming to give them advice — 


THE NEWCOMES 


503 


so that there is no getting a good look at the picture. But I 
have brought you the sketch ; and am so pleased that you asked 
for it. 

Madame de F. (surveying the sketch). It is charming — charm- 
ing ! What shall we give to our painter for his chef-d’oeuvre % 

Clive ( kisses her hand). There is my pay ! And you will be 
glad to hear that two of my portraits have been received at the 
Exhibition. My uncle the clergyman, and Mr. Butts of the Life 
Guards. 

Ethel. Mr. Butts — quel nom ! Je ne connais aucun M. Butts ! 

Clive. He has a famous head to draw. They refused Crack- 
thorpe, and — and one or two other heads I sent in. 

Ethel ( tossing up hers). Miss Mackenzie’s, I suppose ! 

Clive. Yes, Miss Mackenzie’s. It is a sweet little face; too 
delicate for my hand though. 

Ethel. So is a wax doll’s a pretty face. Pink cheeks ; china- 
blue eyes ; and hair the colour of old Madame Hempenfeld’s — not 
her last hair — her last but one. {She goes to a window that looks 
into the court.) 

Clive (to the Countess). Miss Mackenzie speaks more respect- 
fully of other people’s eyes and hair. She thinks there is nobody 
in the world to compare to Miss Newcome. 

Madame de F. (aside). And you, mon ami 1 This is the last 
time, entendez-vous ? You must never come here again. If M. le 
Comte knew it he never would pardon me. Encore ! (He kisses 
her Ladyship 1 s hand again.) 

Clive. A good action gains to be repeated. Miss Newcome, 
does the view of the courtyard please you % The old trees and the 
garden are better. That dear old Faun without a nose ! I must 
have a sketch of him : the creepers* round the base are beautiful. 

Miss JS T . I was looking to see if the carriage had come for me. 
It is time that I returned home. 

Clive. That is my brougham. May I carry you anywhere % I 
hire him by the hour ; and I will carry you to the end of the world. 

Miss N. Where are you going, Madame de Florae? — to show 
that sketch to M. le Comte ? Dear me ! I don’t fancy that M. de 
Florae can care for such things ! I am sure I have seen many as 
pretty on the quays for twenty-five sous. I wonder the carriage is 
not come for me. 

Clive. You can take mine without my company, as that seems 
not to please you. 

Miss N. Your company is sometimes very pleasant — when you 
please. Sometimes, as last night, for instance, you are not parti- 
cularly lively. 


504 


THE NEWCOMES 


Clive. Last night, after moving heaven and earth to get an 
invitation to Madame de Brie — I say, heaven and earth, that is a 
French phrase — I arrive there; I find Miss Newcome engaged for 
almost every dance, waltzing with M. de Klingenspohr, galoping 
with Count de Capri, galoping and waltzing with the most noble 
the Marquis of Farintosh. She will scarce speak to me during the 
evening ; and when I wait till midnight, her grandmamma whisks 
her home, and I am left alone for my pains. Lady Kew is in one 
of her high moods, and the only words she condescends to say to 
me are, “ Oh, I thought you had returned to London,” with which 
she turns her venerable back upon me. 

Miss iV. A fortnight ago you said you were going to London. 
You said the copies you were about here would not take you another 
week, and that was three weeks since. 

Clive. It were best I had gone. 

Miss N. If you think so, I cannot but think so. 

Clive. Why do I stay and hover about you, and follow you? 
— you know I follow you. Can I live on a smile vouchsafed twice 
a week, and no brighter than you give to all the world ? What do 
I get, but to hear your beauty praised, and to see you, night after 
night, happy and smiling and triumphant, the partner of other 
men ? Does it add zest to your triumph, to think that I behold it ? 
I believe you would like a crowd of us to pursue you. 

Miss N. To pursue me ; and if they find me alone, by chance 
to compliment me with such speeches as you make ? That would 
be pleasure indeed ! Answer me here in return, Clive. Have I 
ever disguised from any of my friends the regard I have for you ? 
Why should I ? Have not I taken your part when you were 
maligned? In former days when — when Lord Kew asked me, as 
he had a right to do then — I said it was as a brother I held you ; 
and always would. If I have been wrong, it has been for two* or 
three times in seeing you at all — or seeing you thus ; in letting you 
speak to me as you do — injure me as you do. Do you think I 
have not had hard enough words said to me about you, but that 
you must attack me too in turn? Last night only, because you 
were at the ball, — it was very very wrong of me to tell you I was 

going there, — as we went home, Lady Kew Go, sir. I never 

thought you would have seen in me this humiliation. 

Clive. Is it possible that I should have made Ethel Newcome 
shed tears ? Oh, dry them, dry them. Forgive me, Ethel, forgive 
me ! I have no right to jealousy, or to reproach you — I know that. 
If others admire you, surely I ought to know that they — they do 
but as I do : I should be proud, not angry, that they admire my 
Ethel — my sister, if you can be no more. 


THE NEWCOMES 


505 


Ethel. I will be that always, whatever harsh things you think 
or say of me. There, sir, I am not going to be so foolish as to cry 
again. Have you been studying very hard] Are your pictures 
good at the Exhibition] I like you with your mustachios best, 
and order you not to cut them off again. The young men here 
wear them. I hardly knew Charles Beardmore when he arrived 
from Berlin the other day, like a sapper and miner. His little 
sisters cried out, and were quite frightened by his apparition. Why 
are you not in diplomacy] That day at Brighton, when Lord 
Farintosh asked whether you were in the army, I thought to myself, 
why is he not] 

Clive. A man in the army may pretend to anything, n’est-ce 
jms ? He wears a lovely uniform. He may be a General, a K.C.B., 
a Viscount, an Earl. He may be valiant in arms, and wanting a 
leg, like the lover in the song. It is peace time, you say ] so much 
the worse career for a soldier. My father would not have me, he 
said, for ever dangling in barracks, or smoking in country billiard- 
rooms. I have no taste for law; and as for diplomacy, I have 
no relations in the Cabinet, and no uncles in the House of Peers. 
Could my uncle, who is in Parliament, help me much, do you 
think] or would he, if he could] — or Barnes, his noble son and 
heir, after him ] 

Ethel (musing). Barnes would not, perhaps, but papa might 
even still, and you have friends who are fond of you. 

Clive. No — no one can help me ; and my art, Ethel, is not only 
my choice and my love, but my honour too. I shall never dis- 
tinguish myself in it ; I may take smart likenesses, but that is all. 
I am not fit to grind my friend Ridley’s colours for him. Nor 
would my father, who loves his own profession so, make a good 
general probably. He always says so. I thought better of myself 
when I began as a boy; and was a conceited youngster, expecting 
to carry all before me. But as I walked the Vatican, and looked 
at Raphael, and at the great Michael — I knew I was but a poor 
little creature; and in contemplating his genius, shrunk up till I 
felt myself as small as a man looks under the dome of St. Peter’s. 
Why should I wish to have a great genius] — Yes, there is one 
reason why I should like to have it. 

Ethel. And that is ] 

Clive. To give it you, if it pleased you, Ethel. But I might 
wish for the roc’s egg : there is no way of robbing the bird. I 
must take a humble place, and you want a brilliant one. A 
brilliant one ! 0 Ethel, what a standard we folks measure fame 

by ! To have your name in the Morning Post , and to go to three 
balls every night. To have your dress described at the Drawing 


506 


THE NEWCOMES 


room ; and your arrival, from a round of visits in the country, at 
your town house : and the entertainment of the Marchioness of 
Farm 

Ethel. Sir, if you please, no calling names. 

Clive. I wonder at it. For you are in the world, and you love 
the world, whatever you may say. And I wonder that one of your 
strength of mind should so care for it. I think my simple old 
father is much finer than all your grandees : his single-mindedness 
more lofty than all their bowing, and haughtiness, and scheming. 
What are you thinking of, as you stand in that pretty attitude — 
like Mnemosyne — with your finger on your chin ? 

Ethel. Mnemosyne ! who was she ? I think I like you best 
when you are quiet and gentle, and not when you are flaming out 
and sarcastic, sir. And so you think you will never be a famous 
painter ? They are quite in society here. I was so pleased, 
because two of them dined at the Tuileries when grandmamma was 
there ; and she mistook one, who was covered all over with crosses, 
for an ambassador, I believe, till the Queen called him Monsieur 
Delaroche. She says there is no knowing people in this country. 
And do you think you will never be able to paint as well as 
M. Delaroche 1 ? 

Clive. No — never. 

Ethel. And — and — you will never give up painting? 

Clive. No — never. That would be like leaving your friend 
who was poor; or deserting your mistress because you were dis- 
appointed about her money. They do those things in the great 
world, Ethel. 

Ethel ( with a sigh). Yes. 

Clive. If it is so false, and base, and hollow, this great world — 
if its aims are so mean, its successes so paltry, the sacrifices it asks 
of you so degrading, the pleasures it gives you so wearisome, shame- 
ful even, why does Ethel Newcome cling to it? Will you be fairer, 
dear, with any other name than your own ? Will you be happier, 
after a month, at bearing a great title, with a man whom you can’t 
esteem, tied for ever to you, to be the father of Ethel’s children, 
and the lord and master of her life and actions? The proudest 
woman in the world consent to bend herself to this ignominy, and 
own that a coronet is a bribe sufficient for her honour ! What is 
the end of a Christian life, Ethel ; a girl’s pure nurture ? — it can’t 
be this ! Last week, as we walked in the garden here, and heard 
the nuns singing in their chapel, you said how hard it was 
that poor women should be imprisoned so, and were thankful 
that in England we had abolished that slavery. Then you cast 
your eyes to the ground, and mused as you paced the walk ; and 


THE NEWCOMES 5 07 

thought, I know, that perhaps their lot was better than some 
others’. 

Ethel. Yes, I did. I was thinking that almost all women are 
made slaves one way or other, and that these poor nuns perhaps 
were better off than we are. 

Clive. I never will quarrel with nun or matron for following 
her vocation. But for our women, who are free, why should they 
rebel against Nature, shut their hearts up, sell their lives for rank 
and money, and forego the most precious right of their liberty 1 ? 
Look, Ethel, dear. I love you so, that if I thought another had 
your heart, an honest man, a loyal gentleman, like — like him of 
last year even, I think I could go back with a God bless you, and 
take to my pictures again, and work on in my own humble way. 
You seem like a queen to me, somehow ; and I am but a poor, 
humble fellow, who might be happy, I think, if you were. In 
those balls, where I have seen you surrounded by those brilliant 
young men, noble and wealthy, admirers like me, I have often 
thought, “ How could I aspire to such a creature, and ask her to 
forego a palace to share the crust of a poor painter ? ” 

Ethel. You spoke quite scornfully of palaces just now, Clive. 
I won’t say a word about the — the regard which you express for 
me. I think you have it. Indeed, I do. But it were best not 
said, Clive ; best for me, perhaps, not to own that I know it. In 
your speeches, my poor boy — and you will please not to make any 
more, or I never can see you or speak to you again, never — you 
forgot one part of a girl’s duty : obedience to her parents. They 
would never agree to my marrying any one below — any one whose 
union would not be advantageous in a worldly point of view. I 
never would give such pain to the poor father, or to the kind soul 
who never said a harsh word to me since I was born. My grand- 
mamma is kind, too, in her way. I came to her of my own free 
will. When she said she would leave me her fortune, do you think 
it was for myself alone that I was glad % My father’s passion is to 
make an estate, and all my brothers and sisters will be but slenderly 
portioned. Lady Kew said she would help them if I came to her — 
and — it is the welfare of those little people that depends upon me, 
Clive. Now do you see, brother, why you must speak to me so no 
more % There is the carriage. God bless you, dear Clive. 

(Clive sees the carriage drive away after Miss New come has 
entered it without once looking up to the window where he stands. 
When it is gone he goes to the opposite windows of the salon, which 
are open, towards the garden. The chapel music begins to play 
from the convent, next door. As he hears it he sinks down, his 
head in his hands.) 


508 


THE NEWCOMES 


Enter Madame de Florae. { She goes to him with anxious 
looks.) What hast thou, my child 1 ? Hast thou spoken 1 ? 

Clive {very steadily). Yes. 

Madame de F. And she loves thee 1 ? I know she loves 
thee. 

Clive. You hear the organ of the convent 1 

Madame de F. Qu’as-tu ? 

Clive. I might as well hope to marry one of the sisters of 
yonder convent, dear lady. {He sinks down again and she 
kisses him.) 

Clive. I never had a mother ; but you seem like one. 

Madame de F. Mon fils ! 0 mon fils ! 


CHAPTER XLVIII 

IN WHICH BENEDICK IS A MARRIED MAN 

W E have all heard of the dying French Duchess, who viewed 
her coming dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, be- 
cause she said she was sure that Heaven must deal 
politely with a person of her quality ; — I suppose Lady Kew had 
some such notions regarding people of rank : her long-suffering 
towards them was extreme; in fact, there were vices which the 
old lady thought pardonable, and even natural, in a young nobleman 
of high station, which she never would have excused in persons of 
vulgar condition. 

Her Ladyship’s little knot of associates and scandal-bearers — 
elderly roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to 
know all sorts of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle ; what was 
happening among the devotees of the exiled court at Frohsdorf ; 
what among the citizen princes of the Tuileries ; who was the reign- 
ing favourite of the Queen Mother at Aranjuez ; who was smitten 
with whom at Vienna or Naples; and the last particulars of the 
chroniques scandaleuses of Paris and London : — Lady Kew, I say, 
must have been perfectly aware of my Lord Farintosh’s amusements, 
associates, and manner of life, and yet she never, for one moment, 
exhibited any anger or dislike towards that nobleman. Her amiable 
heart was so full of kindness and forgiveness towards the young 
prodigal that, even without any repentance on his part, she was 
ready to take him to her old arms, and give him her venerable 
benediction. Pathetic sweetness of nature ! Charming tenderness 
of disposition ! With all his faults and wickednesses, his follies 
and his selfishness, there was no moment w T hen Lady Kew would 
not have received the young lord, and endowed him with the hand 
of her darling Ethel. 

But the hopes which this fond forgiving creature had nurtured 
for one season, and carried on so resolutely to the next, were 
destined to be disappointed yet a second time, by a most provoking 
event which occurred in the Newcome family. Ethel was called 
away suddenly from Paris by her father’s third and last paralytic 
seizure. When she reached her home, Sir Brian could not recognise 


510 


THE NEW COMES 


her. A few hours after her arrival, all the vanities of the world 
were over for him : and Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, reigned in his 
stead. ' The day after Sir Brian was laid in his vault at Newcome, 
a letter appeared in the local papers addressed to the Independent 
Electors of that Borough, in which his orphaned son, feelingly 
alluding to the virtue, the services, and the political principles of 
the deceased, offered himself as a candidate for the seat in Parliament 
now vacant. Sir Barnes announced that he should speedily pay his 
respects in person to the friends and supporters of his lamented 
father. That he was a staunch friend of our admirable constitution 
need not be said. That he was a firm but conscientious upholder 
of our Protestant religion, all who knew Barnes Newcome must be 
aware. That he would do his utmost to advance the interests of 
this great agricultural, this great manufacturing county and borough, 
we may be assured he avowed ; as that he would be (if returned to 
represent Newcome in Parliament) the advocate of every rational 
reform, the unhesitating opponent of every reckless innovation. In 
fine, Barnes Newcome’s manifesto to the Electors of Newcome was 
as authentic a document, and gave him credit for as many public 
virtues, as that slab over poor Sir Brian’s bones in the chancel of 
Newcome church, which commemorated the good qualities of the 
defunct, and the grief of his heir. 

In spite of the virtues, personal and inherited, of Barnes, his 
seat for Newcome was not got without a contest. The Dissenting 
interest and the respectable Liberals of the borough wished to set 
up Samuel Higg, Esq., against Sir Barnes Newcome; and now it 
was that Barnes’s civilities of the previous year, aided by Madame 
de Montcontour’s influence over her brother, bore their fruit. Mr. 
Higg declined to stand against Sir Barnes Newcome, although Higg’s 
political principles were by no means those of the honourable 
Baronet ; and the candidate from London, whom the Newcome 
extreme Radicals set up against Barnes, was nowhere on the poll 
when the day of election came. So Barnes had the desire of his 
heart ; and, within two months after his father’s decease, he sat in 
Parliament as Member for Newcome. 

The bulk of the late Baronet’s property descended, of course, to 
his eldest son : who grumbled, nevertheless, at the provision made 
for his brothers and sisters, and that the town house should have 
been left to Lady Ann, who was too poor to inhabit it. But Park 
Lane is the best situation in London, and Lady Ann’s means were 
greatly improved by the annual produce of the house in Park Lane, 
which, as we all know, was occupied by a foreign minister for 
several subsequent seasons. Strange mutations of fortune : old 
places ; new faces ; what Londoner does not see and speculate upon 


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511 


them every day ? Celia’s boudoir, who is dead with the daisies over 
her at Kensal Green, is now the chamber where Delia is consulting 
Dr. Locock, or Julia’s children are romping : Florio’s dining-tables 
have now Pollio’s wine upon them : Calista, being a widow r , and (to 
the surprise of everybody who knew Trimalchio, and enjoyed his 
famous dinners) left but very poorly off, lets the house and the rich, 
chaste, and appropriate planned furniture, by Dowbiggin, and the 
proceeds go to keep her little boys at Eton. The next year, as Mr. 
Clive Newcome rode by the once familiar mansion (whence the 
hatchment had been removed, announcing that there was in Coelo 
Quies for the late Sir Brian Newcome, Bart.), alien faces looked 
from over the flowers in the balconies. He got a card for an enter- 
tainment from the occupant of the mansion, H.E. the Bulgarian 
Minister ; and there w r as the same crowd in the reception room and 
on the stairs, the same grave men from Gunter’s distributing the 
refreshments in the dining-room, the same old Smee, R.A. (always 
in the room where the edibles were), cringing to and flattering the 
new occupants ; and the same effigy of poor Sir Brian, in his deputy- 
lieutenant’s uniform, looking blankly down from over the sideboard 
at the feast which his successors were giving. A dreamy old ghost 
of a picture. Have you ever looked at those round George IV. ’s 
banqueting hall at Windsor ? Their frames still hold them, but they 
smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets which are 
quite faint and faded ; their crimson coats have a twilight tinge ; 
the lustre of their stars has twinkled out ; they look as if they were 
about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their originals in 
limbo 

Nearly three years had elapsed since the good Colonel’s de- 
parture for India, and during this time certain changes had occurred 
in the lives of the principal actors and the writer of this history. 
As regards the latter, it must be stated that the dear old firm of 
Lamb Court had been dissolved, the junior member having con- 
tracted another partnership. The chronicler of these memoirs was 
a bachelor no longer. My wife and I had spent the winter at 
Rome (favourite resort of young married couples) ; and had heard 
from the artists there Clive’s name affectionately repeated; and 
many accounts of his sayings and doings, his merry supper-parties, 
and the talents of young Ridley, his friend. When we came to 
London in the spring, almost our first visit was to Clive’s apart- 
ments in Charlotte Street, wdiither my wife delightedly went to 
give her hand to the young painter. 

But Clive no longer inhabited that quiet region. On driving 
to the house we found a bright brass plate, with the name of Mr. 


512 


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J. J. Ridley on the door, and it was J. J.’s hand which I shook 
(his other being engaged with a great palette, and a sheaf of 
painting-brushes) when we entered the well-known quarters. Clive’s 
picture hung over the mantelpiece, where his father’s head used 
to hang in our time — a careful and beautifully executed portrait 
of the lad in a velvet coat, and a Roman hat, with that golden 
beard which was sacrificed to the exigencies of London fashion. I 
showed Laura the likeness until she could become acquainted with 
the original. On her expressing her delight at the picture, the 
painter was pleased to say, in his modest blushing way, that he 
would be glad to execute my wife’s portrait too, nor, as I think, 
could any artist find a subject more pleasing. 

After admiring others of Mr. Ridley’s works, our talk naturally 
reverted to his predecessor. Clive had migrated to much more 
splendid quarters. Had we not heard ? he had become a rich man, 
a man of fashion. “ I fear he is very lazy about the arts,” J. J. 
said, with regret on his countenance ; “ though I begged and prayed 
him to be faithful to his profession. He would have done very 
well in it, in portrait-painting especially. Look here, and here, 
and here ! ” said Ridley, producing fine vigorous sketches of Clive’s. 
“ He had the art of seizing the likeness, and of making all his 
people look like gentlemen too. He was improving every day, 
when this abominable bank came in the way and stopped him.” 

What bank ? I did not know the new Indian bank of which 
the Colonel was a director 1 ? Then, of course, I was aware that 
the mercantile affair in question was the Bundelcund Bank, about 
which the Colonel had written to me from India more than a 
year since, announcing that fortunes were to be made by it, and 
that he had reserved shares for me in the company. Laura admired 
all Clive’s sketches which his affectionate brother artist showed to 
her, with the exception of one representing the reader’s humble 
servant ; which Mrs. Pendennis considered by no means did justice 
to the original. 

Bidding adieu to the kind J. J., and leaving him to pursue his 
art, in that silent serious way in which he daily laboured at it, we 
drove to Fitzroy Square hard by, where I was not displeased to 
show the good old hospitable James Binnie the young lady who 
bore my name. But here, too, we were disappointed. Placards 
watered in the windows announced that the old house was to let. 
The woman who kept it brought a card in Mrs. Mackenzie’s frank 
handwriting, announcing Mr. James Binnie’s address was, “ Poste- 
restante, Pau, in the Pyrenees,” and that his London agents were 
Messrs. So-and-so. The woman said she believed the gentleman 
had been unwell. The house, too, looked very pale, dismal, and 


THE NEWCOMES 


513 


disordered. We drove away from the door, grieving to think that 
ill-health, or any other misfortunes, had befallen good old James. 

Mrs. Pendennis drove back to our lodgings, Brixham’s, in 
Jermyn Street, while I sped to the City, having business in that 
quarter. It has been said that I kept a small account with Hobson 
Brothers, to whose bank I went, and entered the parlour with that 
trepidation which most poor men feel on presenting themselves 
before City magnates and capitalists. Mr. Hobson New come shook 
hands most jovially and good-naturedly, congratulated me on my 
marriage, and so forth, and presently Sir Barnes Newcome made his 
appearance, still wearing his mourning for his deceased father. 

Nothing could be more kind, pleasant, and cordial than Sir Barnes’s 
manner. He seemed to know well about my affairs ; complimented 
me on every kind of good fortune ; had heard that I had canvassed 
the borough in which I lived ; hoped sincerely to see me in Parlia- 
ment, and on the right side; was most anxious to become acquainted 
with Mrs. Pendennis, of whom Lady Bockminster said all sorts of kind 
things ; and asked for our address, in order that Lady Clara Newcome 
might have the pleasure of calling on my wife. This ceremony was 
performed soon afterwards ; and an invitation to dinner from Sir 
Barnes and Lady Clara Newcome speedily followed it. 

Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., M.P., I need not say, no longer 
inhabited the small house which he had occupied immediately after 
his marriage ; but dwelt in a much more spacious mansion in 
Belgravia, where he entertained his friends. Now that he had 
come into his kingdom, I must say that Barnes was by no means 
so insufferable as in the days of his bachelorhood. He had sown 
his wild oats, and spoke with regret and reserve of that season of 
his moral culture. He was grave, sarcastic, statesmanlike : did 
not try to conceal his baldness (as he used before his father’s death, 
by bringing lean wisps of hair over his forehead from the back of 
his head) ; talked a great deal about the House ; was assiduous 
in his attendance there and in the City ; and conciliatory with all 
the world. It seemed as if we were all his constituents, and 
though his efforts to make himself agreeable were rather apparent, 
the effect succeeded pretty well. We met Mr. and Mrs. Hobson 
Newcome, and Clive, and Miss Ethel looking beautiful in her black 
robes. It was a family party, Sir Barnes said, giving us to under- 
stand, with a decorous solemnity in face and voice, that no large 
parties as yet could be received in that house of mourning. 

To this party was added, rather to my surprise, my Lord High- 
gate, who under the sobriquet of Jack Belsize has been presented 
to the reader of this history. Lord Highgate gave Lady Clara his 
arm to dinner, but went and took a place next Miss Newcome, on 
8 2 K 


514 


THE NEWCOMES 


the other side of her; that immediately by Lady Clara being 
reserved for a guest who had not as yet made his appearance. 

Lord Highgate’s attentions to his neighbour, his laughing and 
talking, were incessant; so much so that Clive, from his end of 
the table, scowled in wrath at Jack Belsize’s assiduities : it was 
evident that the youth, though hopeless, was still jealous and in 
love with his charming cousin. 

Barnes Newcome was most kind to all his guests : from Aunt 
Hobson to your humble servant there was not one but the master 
of the house had an agreeable word for him. Even for his cousin 
Samuel Newcome, a gawky youth with an eruptive countenance, 
Barnes had appropriate words of conversation, and talked about 
King’s College, of which the lad was an ornament, with the utmost 
affability. He complimented that institution and young Samuel, 
and by that shot knocked over not only Sam but his mamma too. 
He talked to Uncle Hobson about his crops ; to Clive about 
his pictures ; to me about the great effect which a certain article 
in the Fall Mall Gazette had produced in the House, where the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly livid with fury, and Lord 
John burst out laughing at the attack ; in fact, nothing could be 
more amiable than our host on this day. Lady Clara was very 
pretty — grown a little stouter since her marriage ; the change only 
became her. She was a little silent, but then she had Uncle Hobson 
on her left-hand side, between whom and her Ladyship there could 
not be much in common, and the place at the right hand was still 
vacant. The person with whom she talked most freely was Clive, who 
had made a beautiful drawing of her and her little girl, for which 
the mother and the father too, as it appeared, were very grateful. 

What has caused this change in Barnes’s behaviour 1 ? Our 
particular merits or his own private reform? In the two years 
over which this narrative has had to run in the course of as many 
chapters, the writer had inherited a property so small that it could not 
occasion a banker’s civility; and I put down Sir Barnes Newcome’s 
politeness to a sheer desire to be well with me. But with Lord 
Highgate and Clive the case was different, as you must now hear. 

Lord Highgate, having succeeded to his father’s title and 
fortune, had paid every shilling of his debts, and had sowed his 
wild oats to the very last corn. His Lordship’s account at Hobson 
Brothers was very large. Painful events of three years’ date, let 
us hope, were forgotten — gentlemen cannot go on being in love and 
despairing, and quarrelling for ever. When he came into his funds, 
Highgate behaved with uncommon kindness to Rooster, who was 
always straitened for money ; and when the late Lord Dorking 
died and Rooster succeeded to him, there was a meeting at Chanti- 


THE NEWCOMES 


515 


clere between Highgate and Barnes Newcome and his wife, which 
went off very comfortably. At Chanticlere the Dowager Lady Kew 
and Miss Newcome were also staying, when Lord Highgate an- 
nounced his prodigious admiration for the young lady ; and, it was 
said, corrected Farintosh, as a low-minded foul-tongued young cub 
for daring to speak disrespectfully of her. Nevertheless, vous 
concevez , when a man of the Marquis’s rank was supposed to look 
with the eyes of admiration upon a young lady, Lord Highgate 
would not think of spoiling sport, and he left Chanticlere declaring 
that he was always destined to be unlucky in love. When old 
Lady Kew was obliged to go to Vichy for her lumbago, Highgate 
said to Barnes, “ Do ask your charming sister to come to you in 
London ; she will bore herself to death with the old woman at 
Vichy, or with her mother at Bugby ” (whither Lady Ann had gone 
to get her boys educated), and accordingly Miss Newcome came on 
a visit to her brother and sister, at whose house we have just had 
the honour of seeing her. 

When Rooster took his seat in the House of Lords, he was 
introduced by Highgate and Kew, as Highgate had been intro- 
duced by Kew previously. Thus these three gentlemen all rode 
in gold coaches; had all got coronets on their heads; as you 
will, my respected young friend, if you are the eldest son of a peer 
who dies before you. And now they were rich, they were all going 
to be very good boys, let us hope. Kew, we know, married one of 
the Dorking family, that second Lady Henrietta Pulleyn, whom we 
described as frisking about at Baden, and not in the least afraid of 
him. How little the reader knew, to whom we introduced the girl 
in that chatty off-hand way, that one day the young creature would 
be a countess ! But we knew it all the while — and when she was 
walking about with the governess, or romping with her sisters ; and 
when she had dinner at one o’clock ; and when she wore a pinafore 
very likely — we secretly respected her as the future Countess of 
Kew, and mother of the Viscount Walham. 

Lord Kew was very happy with his bride, and very good to 
her. He took Lady Kew to Paris, for a marriage trip ; but they 
lived almost altogether at Kewbury afterwards, where his Lordship 
sowed tame oats now after his wild ones, and became one of the 
most active farmers of his county. He and the Newcomes were 
not very intimate friends ; for Lord Kew was heard to say that he 
disliked Barnes more after his marriage than before. And the two 
sisters, Lady Clara and Lady Kew, had a quarrel on one occasion, 
when the latter visited London just before the dinner at which we 
have just assisted — nay, at which we are just assisting, took place — 
a quarrel about Highgate’s attentions to Ethel very likely. Kew was 


5 1 6 


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dragged into it, and hot words passed between him and Jack Belsize; 
and Jack did not go down to Kewbury afterwards, though Kew’s 
little boy was christened after him. All these interesting details about 
people of the very highest rank we are supposed to whisper in the 
reader’s ear as we are sitting at a Belgravian dinner-table. My 
dear Barmecide friend, isn’t it pleasant to be in such fine company ? 

And now we must tell how it is that Clive Newcome, Esq., 
whose eyes are flashing fire across the flowers of the table at Lord 
Highgate, who is making himself so agreeable to Miss Ethel — now 
we must tell how it is that Clive and his cousin Barnes have grown 
to be friends again. 

The Bundelcund Bank, which had been established for four 
years, had now grown to be one of the most flourishing commercial 
institutions in Bengal. Founded, as the prospectus announced, at 
a time when all private credit was shaken by the failure of the 
great Agency Houses, of which the downfall had carried dismay 
and ruin throughout the presidency, the B. B. had been established 
on the only sound principle of commercial prosperity — that of 
association. The native capitalists, headed by the great firm of 
Rummun Loll & Co., of Calcutta, had largely embarked in the 
B. B., and the officers of the two services and the European mercan- 
tile body of Calcutta had been invited to take shares in an institu- 
tion which to merchants, native and English, civilians and military 
men, was alike advantageous and indispensable. How many young 
men of the latter services had been crippled for life by the ruinous 
cost of agencies, of which the profits to the agents themselves were 
so enormous ! The shareholders of the B. B. were their own 
agents ; and the greatest capitalist in India as well as the youngest 
ensign in the service might invest at the largest and safest premium, 
and borrow at the smallest interest, by becoming, according to his 
means, a shareholder in the B. B. Their correspondents were 
established in each presidency and in every chief city of India, as 
well as at Sydney, Singapore, Canton, and, of course, London. 
With China they did an immense opium trade, of which the profits 
were so great, that it was only in private sittings of the B. B. 
managing committee that the details and accounts of these opera- 
tions could be brought forward. Otherwise the books of the bank 
were open to every shareholder ; and the ensign or the young civil 
servant was at liberty at any time to inspect his own private 
account as well as the common ledger. With New South Wales 
they carried on a vast trade in wool, supplying that great colony 
with goods, which their London agents enabled them to purchase 
in such a way as to give them the command of the market. As if 
to add to their prosperity, copper mines were discovered on lands 


THE NEWCOMES 


517 


in the occupation of the B. Banking Company, which gave the most 
astonishing returns. And throughout the vast territories of British 
India, through the great native firm of Rummun Loll & Co., the 
Bundelcund Banking Company had possession of the native markets. 
The order from Birmingham for idols alone (made with their copper, 
and paid in their wool) was enough to make the Low Church party 
in England cry out ; and a debate upon this subject actually took 
place in the House of Commons, of which the effect was to send up 
the shares of the Bundelcund Banking Company very considerably 
upon the London Exchange. 

The fifth half-yearly dividend was announced at twelve and a 
quarter per cent, of the paid-up capital : the accounts from the 
copper mine sent the dividend up to a still greater height, and 
carried the shares to an extraordinary premium. In the third year 
of the concern, the house of Hobson Brothers, of London, became 
the agents of the Bundelcund Banking Company of Iudia; and 
amongst our friends, James Binnie, who had prudently held out for 
some time, and Clive Newcome, Esq., became shareholders, Clive’s 
good father having paid the first instalments of the lad’s shares up 
in Calcutta, and invested every rupee he could himself command in 
this enterprise. When Hobson Brothers joined it, no wonder 
James Binnie was convinced ; Clive’s friend, the Frenchman, and 
through that connection the house of Higg, of Newcome and Man- 
chester, entered into the affair ; and amongst the minor contributors 
in England we may mention Miss Cann, who took a little fifty- 
pound-note share, and dear old Miss Honeyman; and J. J., and 
his father, Ridley, who brought a small bag of savings — all knowing 
that their Colonel, who was eager that his friends should partici- 
pate in his good fortune, would never lead them wrong. To Clive’s 
surprise Mrs. Mackenzie, between whom and himself there was a 
considerable coolness, came to his chambers, and with a solemn 
injunction that the matter between them should be quite private, 
requested him to purchase £1500 worth of Bundelcund shares for her 
and her darling girls, which he did, astonished to find the thrifty 
widow in possession of so much money. Had Mr. Pendennis’s mind 
not been bent at this moment on quite other subjects, he might have 
increased his own fortune by the Bundelcund Bank speculation ; 
but in these two years I was engaged in matrimonial affairs (having 
Clive Newcome, Esq., as my groomsman on a certain interesting 
occasion). When we returned from our tour abroad the India Bank 
shares were so very high that I did not care to purchase, though I 
found an affectionate letter from our good Colonel (enjoining me to 
make my fortune) awaiting me at the agent’s, and my wife received 
a pair of beautiful Cashmere shawls from the same kind friend. 


CHAPTER XLIX 


CONTAINS AT LEAST SIX MORE COURSES AND 
TIVO DESSERTS 

HE banker’s dinner-party over, we returned to our apart- 



ments, having dropped Major Pendennis at his lodgings, and 


A there, as the custom is amongst most friendly married couples, 
talked over the company and the dinner. I thought my wife 
would naturally have liked Sir Barnes Newcome, who was very 
attentive to her, took her to dinner as the bride, and talked cease- 
lessly to her during the whole entertainment. 

Laura said No — she did not know why — could there be any 
better reason? There was a tone about Sir Barnes Newcome she 
did not like — especially in his manner to women. 

I remarked that he spoke sharply and in a sneering manner to 
his wife, and treated one or two remarks which she made as if she 
was an idiot. 

Mrs. Pendennis flung up her head as much as to say, “And 
so she is.” 

Mr. Pendennis. What, the wife too, my dear Laura ! I should 
have thought such a pretty, simple, innocent young woman, with 
just enough good looks to make her pass muster, who is very well 
bred and not brilliant at all, — I should have thought such a one 
might have secured a sister’s approbation. 

Mrs. Pendennis. You fancy we are all jealous of one another. 
No protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads. My 
dear Pen, I do not intend to try. We are not jealous of mediocrity ; 
we are not patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see 
men admire it so. You gentlemen, who pretend to be our betters, 
give yourselves such airs of protection, and profess such a lofty 
superiority over us, prove it by quitting the cleverest woman in the 
room for the first pair of bright eyes and dimpled cheeks that enter. 
It was those charms which attracted you in Lady Clara, sir. 

Pendennis. I think she is very pretty, and very innocent, and 
artless. 

Mrs. P. Not very pretty, and perhaps not so very artless. 

Pendennis. How can you tell, you wicked woman? Are you 


THE NEWCOMES 519 

such a profound deceiver yourself, that you can instantly detect 
artifice in others ? 0 Laura ! 

Mrs. P. We can detect all sorts of things. The inferior animals 
have instincts, you know. (I must say my wife is always very 
satirical upon this point of the relative rank of the sexes.) One 
thing I am sure of is that she is not happy ; and oh, Pen ! that she 
does not care much for her little girl. 

Pendennis. How do you know that, my dear 1 

Mrs. P. We went upstairs to see the child after dinner. It 
was at my wish. The mother did not offer to go. The child was 
awake and crying. Lady Clara did not offer to take it. Ethel — 
Miss Newcome took it, rather to my surprise, for she seems very 
haughty, and the nurse, who I suppose was at supper, came running 
up at the noise, and then the poor little thing was quiet. 

Pendennis. I remember we heard the music as the dining-room 
door was open ; and Newcome said, “ That is what you will have 
to expect, Pendennis.” 

Mrs. P. Hush, sir ! If my baby cries, I think you must 
expect me to run out of the room. I liked Miss Newcome after 
seeing her with the poor little thing. She looked so handsome as 
she walked with it ! I longed to have it myself. 

Pendennis. Tout vient k la fin, h qui sait . . . 

Mrs. P. Don’t be silly. What a dreadful, dreadful place this great 
world of yours is, Arthur ; where husbands do not seem to care for 
their wives; where mothers do not love their children; where children 
love their nurses best ; where men talk what they call gallantry ! 

Pendennis. What? 

Mrs. P. Yes, such as that dreary, languid, pale, bald, cadaver- 
ous, leering man whispered to me. Oh, how I dislike him ! I am 
sure he is unkind to his wife. I am sure he has a bad temper; 
and if there is any excuse for 

Pendennis. For what ? 

Mrs. P. For nothing. But you heard yourself that he had a 
bad temper, and spoke sneeringly to his wife. What could make 
her marry him ? 

Pendennis. Money, and the desire of papa and mamma. For 
the same reason Clive’s flame, poor Miss Newcome, was brought 
out to-day ; that vacant seat at her side was for Lord Farintosh, 
who did not come. And the Marquis not being present, the Baron 
took his innings. Did you not see how tender he was to her, and 
how fierce poor Clive looked % 

Mrs. P. Lord Highgate was very attentive to Miss Newcome, 
was he % 

Pendennis. And some years ago Lord Highgate was breaking 


520 


THE NEWCOMES 


his heart about whom do you think ? about Lady Clara Pulleyn, our 
hostess of last night. He was Jack Belsize then, a younger son, 
plunged over head and ears in debt ; and of course there could be no 
marriage. Clive was present at Baden when a terrible scene took 
place, and carried off poor Jack to Switzerland and Italy, where he 
remained till his father died, and he came in to the title in which 
he now rejoices. And now he is off with the old love, Laura, and 
on with the new. Why do you look at me so ? Are you thinking 
that other people have been in love two or three times too ? 

Mrs. P. I am thinking that I should not like to live in London, 
Arthur. 

And this was all that Mrs. Laura could be brought to say. 
When this young woman chooses to be silent, there is no power 
that can extract a word from her. It is true that she is generally 
in the right ; but that is only the more aggravating. Indeed, what 
can be more provoking, after a dispute w’ith your wife, than to find 
it is you, and not she, who has been in the wrong ? 

Sir Barnes Newcome politely caused us to understand that the 
entertainment of which we had just partaken was given in honour 
of the bride. Clive must needs not be outdone in hospitality ; and 
invited us and others to a fine feast at the “ Star and Carter ” at 
Richmond, where Mrs. Pendennis was placed at his right hand. I 
smile as I think how much dining has been already commemorated 
in these veracious pages ; but the story is an everyday record ; and 
does not dining form a certain part of the pleasure and business 
of every day? It is at that pleasant hour that our sex has the 
privilege of meeting the other. The morning man and woman alike 
devote to business; or pass mainly in the company of their own kind. 
John has his office ; Jane her household, her nursery, her milliner, 
her daughters and their masters. In the country he has his hunting, 
his fishing, his farming, his letters ; she her schools, her poor, her 
garden, or what not. Parted through the shining hours, and improv- 
ing them, let us trust, we come together towards sunset only, we 
make merry and amuse ourselves. We chat with our pretty neigh- 
bour, or survey the young ones sporting ; we make love and are 
jealous ; we dance, or obsequiously turn over the leaves of Cecilia’s 
music-book ; we play whist, or go to sleep in the arm-chair, accord- 
ing to our ages and conditions. Snooze gently in thy arm-chair, thou 
easy bald-head ! play your whist, or read your novel, or talk scandal 
over your work, ye worthy dowagers and fogeys ! Meanwhile the 
young ones frisk about, or dance, or sing, or laugh ; or whisper be- 
hind curtains in moonlit windows ; or shirk away into the garden, and 
come back smelling of cigars ; nature having made them so to do. 


THE NEWCOMES 


521 


Nature at this time irresistibly impelled Clive Newcome towards 
love-making. It was pairing-season with him. Mr. Clive was now 
some three-and-twenty years old ; enough has been said about his 
good looks, which were in truth sufficient to make him a match for 
the young lady on whom he had set his heart, and from whom, 
during this entertainment which he gave to my wife, he could never 
keep his eyes away for three minutes. Laura’s did not need to be 
so keen as they were in order to see what poor Clive’s condition 
was. She did not in the least grudge the young fellow’s inattention 
to herself ; or feel hurt that he did not seem to listen when she 
spoke ; she conversed with J. J., her neighbour, who was very; 
modest and agreeable ; while her husband, not so well pleased, had 
Mrs. Hobson Newcome for his partner during the chief part of the 
entertainment. Mrs. Hobson and Lady Clara were the matrons 
who gave the sanction of their presence to this bachelor party 
Neither of their husbands could come to Clive’s little fete ; had they 
not the City and the House of Commons to attend 1 ? My uncle, 
Major Pendennis, was another of the guests, who for his part found 
the party was what you young fellows call very slow. Dreading Mrs. 
Hobson and her powers of conversation, the old gentleman nimbly 
skipped out of her neighbourhood, and fell by the side of Lord 
Highgate, to whom the Major was inclined to make himself very 
pleasant. But Lord Highgate’s broad back was turned upon his % 
neighbour, who was forced to tell stories to Captain Crackthorpe, 
which had amused dukes and marquises in former days, and were 
surely quite good enough for any baron in this realm. “Lord 
Highgate sweet upon la belle Newcome, is he?” said the testy 
Major afterwards. “ He seemed to me to talk to Lady Clara the 
whole time. When I awoke in the garden after dinner, as Mrs. 
Hobson was telling one of her confounded long stories, I found her 
audience was diminished to one. Crackthorpe, Lord Highgate, and 
Lady Clara, we had all been sitting there when the bankeress cut 
in (in the midst of a very good story I was telling them, which 
entertained them very much), and never ceased talking till I fell off 
into a doze. When I roused myself, begad, she was still going on. 
Crackthorpe was off, smoking a cigar on the terrace : my Lord and 
Lady Clara were nowhere ; and you four, with the little painter, 
were chatting cosily in another arbour. Behaved himself very well, 
the little painter. Doosid good dinner Ellis gave us. But as for 
Highgate being aux soins with la belle Banquiere , trust me, my 
boy, he is . . . upon my word, my dear, it seemed to me his 
thoughts went quite another way. To be sure, Lady Clara is a 
belle Banquiere too now. He ! he ! he ! How could he say he had 
no carriage to go home in ? He came down in Crackthorpe’s cab, 


522 THE NEWCOMES 

who passed us just now, driving back young What-d’ye-call, the 
painter.” 

Thus did the Major discourse, as we returned towards the City. 
I could see in the open carriage which followed us (Lady Clara 
Newcome’s) Lord Highgate’s white hat, by Clive’s on the back seat. 

Laura looked at her husband. The same thought may have 
crossed their minds, though neither uttered it ; but although Sir 
Barnes and Lady Clara Newcome offered us other civilities during 
our stay in London, no inducements could induce Laura to accept 
the proffered friendship of that lady. When Lady Clara called, my 
wife was not at home ; when she invited us, Laura pleaded engage- 
ments. At first she bestowed on Miss Newcome, too, a share of 
this haughty dislike, and rejected the advances which that young 
lady, who professed to like my wife very much, made towards an 
intimacy. When I appealed to her (for Newcome’s house was 
after all a very pleasant one, and you met the best people there), 
my wife looked at me with an expression of something like scorn, 
and said: “Why don’t I like Miss Newcome'? of course because I 
am jealous of her — all women, you know, Arthur, are jealous of 
such beauties.” I could get for a long while no better explanation 
than these sneers for my wife’s antipathy towards this branch of 
the Newcome family; but an event came presently which silenced 
my remonstrances, and showed to me that Laura had judged Barnes 
and his wife only too well. 

Poor Mrs. Hobson Newcome had reason to be sulky at the 
neglect which all the Richmond party showed her, for nobody, not 
even Major Pendennis, as we have seen, would listen to her 
intellectual conversation ; nobody, not even Lord Highgate, would 
drive back to town in her carriage, though the vehicle was large 
and empty, and Lady Clara’s barouche, in which his Lordship chose 
to take a place, had already three occupants within it : — but in 
spite of these rebuffs and disappointments the virtuous lady of 
Bryanstone Square was bent upon being good-natured and hospitable; 
and I have to record, in the present chapter, yet one more feast of 
which Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis partook at the expense of the most 
respectable Newcome family. 

Although Mrs. Laura here also appeared, and had the place of 
honour in her character of bride, I am bound to own my opinion 
that Mrs. Hobson only made us the pretext of her party, and that 
in reality it was given to persons of a much more exalted rank. 
We were the first to arrive, our good old major, the most punctual 
of men, bearing us company. Our hostess was arrayed in unusual 
state and splendour ; her fat neck was ornamented with jewels, rich 
bracelets decorated her arms, and this Bryanstone Square Cornelia 


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523 


had likewise her family jewels distributed round her, priceless male 
and female Newcome gems, from the King’s College youth, with 
whom we. have made a brief acquaintance, and his elder sister, now 
entering into the world, down to the last little ornament of the 
nursery, in a prodigious new sash, with ringlets hot and crisp from the 
tongs of a Marylebone hairdresser. We had seen the cherub faces 
of some of these darlings pressed against the drawing-room windows 
as our carriage drove up to the door ; when, after a few minutes’ con- 
versation, another vehicle arrived, away they dashed to the windows 
again, the innocent little dears crying out, “Here’s the Marquis;” 
and in sadder tones, “No, it isn’t the Marquis;” by which artless 
expressions they showed how eager they were to behold an expected 
guest of a rank only inferior to dukes in this great empire. 

Putting two and two together, as the saying is, it was not 
difficult for me to guess who the expected Marquis was — and, 
indeed, the King’s College youth set that question at once to rest, 
by wagging his head at me, and winking his eye, and saying, “We 
expect Farintosh.” 

“Why, my dearest children,” Matronly Virtue exclaimed, “this 
anxiety to behold the young Marquis of Farintosh, whom we expect 
at our modest table, Mrs. Pendennis, to-day? Twice you have 
been at the window in your eagerness to look for him. Louisa, you 
silly child, do you imagine that his Lordship will appear in his 
robes and coronet? Rodolf, you absurd boy, do you think that a 
marquis is other than a man? I have never admired aught but 
intellect, Mrs. Pendennis ; that , let us be thankful, is the only true 
title to distinction in our country nowadays.” 

“ Begad, sir,” whispers the old Major to me, “ intellect may be 
a doosid fine thing, but in my opinion a Marquisate and eighteen 
or twenty thousand a year — I should say the Farintosh property, 
with the Glenlivat estate, and the Roy property in England, must 
be worth nineteen thousand a year at the very lowest figure ; and 
I remember when this young man’s father was only Tom Roy of 
the 42nd, with no hope of succeeding to the title, and doosidly out 
at elbows too ... I say what does the bankeress mean by chatter- 
ing about intellect ? Hang me, a Marquis is a Marquis ; and Mrs. 
Newcome knows it as well as I do.” My good Major was growing 
old, and was not unnaturally a little testy at the manner in which 
his hostess received him. Truth to tell, she hardly took any notice 
of him, and cut down a couple of the old gentleman’s stories before 
he had been five minutes in the room. 

To our party presently comes the host with a flurried counte- 
nance, in a white waistcoat, holding in his hand an open letter, 
towards which his wife looks with some alarm. “How dy’ doo, 


524 


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Lady Clara; how dy’ doo, Ethel?” he says, saluting those ladies 
whom the second carriage had brought to us. “ Sir Barnes is not 
coming, that’s one place vacant ; that, Lady Clara, you won’t mind, 
you see him at home; but here’s a disappointment for you, Miss 
Newcome : Lord Farintosh can’t come.” 

At this, two of the children cry out “ Oh ! oh ! ” with such 
a melancholy accent that Miss Newcome and Lady Clara burst 
out laughing. 

“ Got a dreadful toothache,” said Mr. Hobson ; “ here’s his 
letter.” 

“ Haug it, what a bore ! ” cries artless young King’s College. 

“Why a bore, Samuel? A bore, as you call it, for Lord 
Farintosh, I grant ; but do you suppose that the high in station 
are exempt from the ills of mortality ? I know nothing more painful 
than a toothache,” exclaims the virtuous matron, using the words 
of philosophy, but showing the countenance of anger. 

“ Hang it, why didn’t he have it out ? ” says Samuel. 

Miss Ethel laughed. “Lord Farintosh would not have that 
tooth out for the world, Samuel,” she cried gaily. “ He keeps it 
in on purpose, and it always aches when he does not want to go 
out to dinner.” 

“I know one humble family who will never ask him again,” 
Mrs. Hobson exclaims, rustling in all her silks, and tapping her 
fan and her foot. The eclipse, however, passes off her countenance 
and light is restored when, at this moment, a cab having driven up 
during the period of darkness, the door is flung open, and Lord 
Highgate is announced by a loud-voiced butler. 

My wife, being still the bride on this occasion, had the honour 
of being led to the dinner-table by our banker and host. Lord 
Highgate was reserved for Mrs. Hobson, who, in an engaging 
manner, requested poor Clive to conduct his cousin Maria to dinner, 
handing over Miss Ethel to another guest. Our Major gave his 
arm to Lady Clara, and I perceived that my wife looked very grave 
as he passed the place where she sat, and seated Lady Clara in 
the next chair to that which Lord Highgate chanced to occupy. 
Feeling himself en veine , and the company being otherwise rather 
mum and silent, my uncle told a number of delightful anecdotes 
about the beau-monde of his time, about the Peninsular war, the 
Regent, Brummel, Lord Steyne, Pea Green Payne, and so forth. 
He said the evening was very pleasant, though some others of the 
party, as it appeared to me, scarcely seemed to think so. Clive 
had not a word for his cousin Maria, but looked across the table 
at Ethel all dinner-time. What could Ethel have to say to her 
partner, old Colonel Sir Donald M‘Craw, who gobbled and drank as 


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525 


his wont is, and if lie had a remark to make, imparted it to Mrs. 
Hobson, at whose right hand he was sitting, and to whom, during 
the whole course, or courses, of the dinner, my Lord Highgate 
scarcely uttered one single word. 

His Lordship was whispering all the while into the ringlets of 
Lady Clara ; they were talking a jargon which their hostess scarcely 
understood, of people only known to her by her study' of the 
Peerage. When we joined the ladies after dinner, Lord Highgate 
again made way towards Lady Clara, and at an order from her, as 
I thought, left her Ladyship, and strove hard to engage in a con- 
versation with Mrs. Newcome. I hope he succeeded in smoothing 
the frowns in that round little face. Mrs. Laura, I own, was as 
grave as a judge all the evening ; very grave even and reserved with 
my uncle, when the hour for parting came, and we took him home. 

“ He, he ! ” said the old man, coughing, and nodding his old 
head and laughing in his senile manner, when I saw him on the 
next day ; “ that was a pleasant evening we had yesterday ; doosid 
pleasant, and I think my two neighbours seemed to be uncommonly 
pleased with each other ; not an amusing fellow, that young painter 
of yours, though he is good-looking enough, but there’s no conversa- 
tion in him. Do you think of giving a little dinner, Arthur, in 
return for these hospitalities? Greenwich, hey, or something of 
that sort ? I’ll go you halves, sir, and we’ll ask the young banker 
and bankeress — not yesterday’s Amphitryon nor his wife; no, no, 
hang it ! but Barnes Newcome is a devilish clever, rising man, and 
moves in about as good society as any in London. We’ll ask him 
and Lady Clara and Highgate, and one or two more, and have a 
pleasant party.” 

But to this proposal, when the old man communicated it to her, 
in a very quiet, simple, artless way, Laura with a Hushing face said 
no quite abruptly, and quitted the room, rustling in her silks, and 
showing at once dignity and indignation. 

Not many more feasts was Arthur Pendennis, senior, to have 
in this world. Not many more great men was he to flatter, nor 
schemes to wink at, nor earthly pleasures to enjoy. His long days 
were well nigh ended : on his last couch, which Laura tended so 
affectionately, with his last breath almost, he faltered out to me, 
“ I had other views for you, my boy, and once hoped to see you 
in a higher position in life ; but I begin to think now, Arthur, that 
I was wrong; and as for that girl, sir, I’m sure she is an angel.” 

May I not inscribe the words with a grateful heart ? Blessed 
he — blessed though maybe undeserving — who has the love of a 
good woman 


CHAPTER L 


CLIVE IN NEIV QUARTERS 

M Y wife was much better pleased with Clive than with some 
of his relatives to whom I had presented her. His face 
carried a recommendation with it that few honest people 
could resist. He was always a welcome friend in our lodgings, and 
even our uncle the Major signified his approval of the lad as a 
young fellow of very good manners and feelings, who, if he chose 
to throw himself away and be a painter, ma foi, was rich enough 
no doubt to follow his own caprices. Clive executed a capital head 
of Major Pendennis, which now hangs in our drawing-room at 
Fairoaks ; and reminds me of that friend of my youth. Clive 
occupied ancient lofty chambers in Hanover Square now. He had 
furnished them in an antique manner, with hangings, cabinets, 
carved work, Venice glasses, fine prints, and water-colour sketches 
of good pictures by his own and other hands. He had horses to 
ride, and a liberal purse full of paternal money. Many fine equi- 
pages drew up opposite to his chambers : few artists had such luck 
as young Mr. Clive. And above his own chambers were other 
three which the young gentleman had hired, and where, says he, 
“ I hope ere very long my dear old father will be lodging with me. 
In another year he says he thinks he will be able to come home ; 
when the affairs of the Bank are quite settled. You shake your 
head ! why 1 The shares are worth four times what we gave for 
them. We are men of fortune, Pen, I give you my word. You 
should see how much they make of me at Baines and Jolly’s, and 
how civil they are to me at Hobson Brothers’ ! I go into the City 
now and then, and see our manager, Mr. Blackmore. He tells me 
such stories about indigo, and wool, and copper, and sicca rupees, 
and Company’s rupees. I don’t know anything about the business, 
but my father likes me to go and see Mr. Blackmore. Dear Cousin 
Barnes is for ever asking me to dinner ; I might call Lady Clara 
Clara if I liked, as Sam Newcome does in Bryanstone Square. 
You can’t think how kind they are to me there. My aunt re- 
proaches me tenderly for not going there oftener — it’s not very 
good fun dining in Bryanstone Square, is it 1 And she praises my 


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527 


cousin Maria to me — you should hear my aunt praise her ! I have 
to take Maria down to dinner ; to sit by the piano and listen to 
her songs in all languages. Do you know Maria can sing Hungarian 
and Polish besides your common German, Spanish, and Italian 1 
Those I have at our other agents, Baines and Jolly’s — Baines’s that 
is in the Regent’s Park, where the girls are prettier and just as 
civil to me as at Aunt Hobson’s.” And here Clive would amuse 
us by the accounts which he gave us of the snares which the Misses 
Baines, those young sirens of Regent’s Park, set for him ; of the 
songs which they sang to enchant him, the albums in which they 
besought him to draw; the thousand winning ways which they 
employed to bring him into their cave in York Terrace. But 
neither Circe’s smiles nor Calypso’s blandishments had any effect 
on him ; his ears were stopped to their music, and his eyes rendered 
dull to their charms by those of the flighty young enchantress with 
whom my wife had of late made acquaintance. 

Capitalist though he was, our young fellow was still very affable. 
He forgot no old friends in his prosperity ; and the lofty antique 
chambers would not unfrequently be lighted up at nights to receive 
F. B. and some of the old cronies of the “ Haunt,” and some of the 
Gandishites, who, if Clive had been of a nature that was to be 
spoiled by flattery, had certainly done mischief to the young man. 
Gandish himself, when Clive paid a visit to that illustrious artist’s 
Academy, received his former pupil as if the young fellow had been 
a sovereign prince almost, accompanied him to his horse, and would 
have held his stirrup as he mounted, whilst the beautiful daughters 
of the house waved adieux to him from the parlour window. To 
the young men assembled in his studio, Gandish was never tired of 
talking about Clive. The Professor would take occasion to inform 
them that he had been to visit his distinguished young friend, Mr. 
Newcome, son of Colonel Newcome; that last evening he had been 
present at an elegant entertainment at Mr. Newcome’s new apart- 
ments. Clive’s drawings were hung up in Gandish’s gallery, and 
pointed out to visitors by the worthy Professor. On one or two 
occasions I was allowed to become a bachelor again, and participate 
in these jovial meetings. How guilty my coat was on my return 
home ; how haughty the looks of the mistress of my house, as she 
bade Martha carry away the obnoxious garment ! How grand 
F. B. used to be as president of Clive’s smoking-party, where he 
laid down the law, talked the most talk, sang the jolliest song, and 
consumed the most drink of all the jolly talkers and drinkers ! 
Clive’s popularity rose prodigiously ; not only youngsters, but old 
practitioners of the fine arts, lauded his talents. What a shame 
that his pictures were all refused this year at the Academy ! Mr, 


528 


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Smee, R.A., was indignant at their rejection, but J. J. confessed 
with a sigh, and Clive owned good-naturedly, that he had been 
neglecting his business, and that his pictures were not so good as 
those of two years before. I am afraid Mr. Clive went to too many 
balls and parties, to clubs and jovial entertainments, besides losing 
yet more time in that other pursuit we wot of. Meanwhile J. J. 
went steadily on with his work, no day passed without a line ; and 
Fame was not very far off, though this he heeded but little ; and 
Art, his sole mistress, rewarded him for his steady ami fond pursuit 
of her. 

“Look at him,” Clive would say with a sigh. “Isn’t he the 
mortal of all others the most to be envied 1 He is so fond of his 
art that in all the world there is no attraction like it for him. He 
runs to his easel at sunrise, and sits before it caressing his picture 
all day till nightfall. He takes leave of it sadly when dark comes, 
spends the night in a Life Academy, and begins next morning da 
capo. Of all the pieces of good fortune which can befall a man, 
is not this the greatest : to have your desire, and then never tire of 
it h I have been in such a rage with my own shortcomings that I 
have dashed my foot through the canvases, and vowed I would 
smash my palette and easel. Sometimes I succeed a little better in 
my work, and then it will happen for half-an-hour that I am pleased, 
but pleased at what 1 pleased at drawing Mr. Muggins’s head rather 
like Mr. Muggins. Why, a thousand fellows can do better : and 
when one day I reach my very best, thousands will be able to do 
better still. Ours is a trade for which nowadays there is no excuse 
unless one can be great in it ; and I feel I have not the stuff for 
that. No. 666. Portrait of Joseph Muggins, Esq., Newcome, 
George Street. No. 979. Portrait of Mrs. Muggins, on her grey 
pony, Newcome. No. 579. Portrait of Joseph Muggins, Esq.’s dog 
Toby, Newcome — this is what I’m fit for. These are the victories 
I have set myself on achieving. 0 Mrs. Pendennis ! isn’t it humili- 
ating ? Why isn’t there a war 1 Why can’t I go and distinguish 
myself somewhere and be a general ? Why haven’t I a genius ? I 
say, Pen, sir, why haven’t I a genius 1 There is a painter who lives 
hard by, and who sends sometimes to beg me to come and look at 
his work. He is iff the Muggins line too. He gets his canvases with 
a good light upon them : excludes the contemplation of all other 
objects, stands beside his pictures in an attitude himself, and thinks 
that he and they are masterpieces. Masterpieces ! Oh me, what drivel- 
ling wretches we are ! Fame ! — except that of just the one or two — 
what’s the use of it % I say, Pen, would you feel particularly proud 
now if you had written Hayley’s poems 1 And as for a second place 
in painting, who would care to be Caravaggio or Caracci % I wouldn’t 


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529 


give a straw to be Caracci or Caravaggio. I would just as soon be 
yonder artist who is painting up Foker’s Entire over the public- 
house at the corner. He will have his payment afterwards, five 
shillings a day, and a pot of beer. Your head a little more to the 
light, Mrs. Pendennis, if you please. I am tiring you, I dare say, 
but then, oh, I am doing it so badly ! ” 

I, for my part, thought Clive was making a very pretty drawing 
of my wife, and having affairs of my own to attend to, would often 
leave her at his chambers as a sitter, or find him at our lodgings 
visiting her. They became the very greatest friends. I knew the 
young fellow could have no better friend than Laura ; and not being 
ignorant of the malady under which he was labouring, concluded 
naturally and justly that Clive grew so fond of my wife, not for her 
sake entirely, but for his own, because he could pour his heart out 
to her, and her sweet kindness and compassion would soothe him in 
his unhappy condition. 

Miss Ethel, I have said, also professed a great fondness for 
Mrs. Pendennis ; and there was that charm in the young lady’s 
manner which speedily could overcome even female jealousy. Per- 
haps Laura determined magnanimously to conquer it ; perhaps she 
hid it so as to vex me and prove the injustice of my suspicions ; 
perhaps, honestly, she was conquered by the young beauty, and 
gave her a regard and admiration which the other knew she could 
inspire whenever she had the will. My wife was fairly captivated 
by her at length. The untamable young creature was docile and 
gentle in Laura’s presence ; modest, natural, amiable, full of laughter 
and spirits, delightful to see and to hear ; her presence cheered our 
quiet little household ; her charm fascinated my wife as it had 
subjugated poor Clive. Even the reluctant Farintosh was compelled 
to own her power, and confidentially told his male friends, that, 
hang it, she was so handsome, and so clever, and so confoundedly 
pleasant and fascinating, and that — that he had been on the point 
of popping the fatal question ever so many times, by Jove ! “ And 

hang it, you know,” his Lordship would say, “I don’t want to 
marry until I have had my fling, you know.” As for Clive, Ethel 
treated him like a boy, like a big brother. She was jocular, kind, 
pert, pleasant with him, ordered him on her errands, accepted his 
bouquets and compliments, admired his drawings, liked to hear him 
praised, and took his part in all companies ; laughed at his sighs, 
and frankly owned to Laura her liking for him and her pleasure in 
seeing him. “ Why,” said she, “ should not I be happy as long as 
the sunshine lasts ? To-morrow, I know, will be glum and dreary 
enough. When grandmamma comes back I shall scarcely be able 
to come and see you. When I am settled in life — eh ! I shall be 
8 2 L 


530 


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settled in life ! Do not grudge me my holiday, Laura. Oh, if you 
knew how stupid it is to be in the world, and how much pleasanter 
to come and talk, and laugh, and sing, and be happy with you, than 
to sit in that dreary Eaton Place with poor Clara ! ” 

“ Why do you stay in Eaton Place ? ” asks Laura. 

“ Why 1 because I must go out with somebody. What an un- 
sophisticated little country creature you are ! Grandmamma is 
away, and I cannot go about to parties by myself.” 

“ But why should you go to parties, and why not go back to 
your mother ? ” says Mrs. Pendennis gently. 

“ To the nursery, and my little sisters and Miss Cann ? I like 
being in London best, thank you. You look grave 1 You think a 
girl should like to be with her mother and sisters best ? My dear, 
mamma wishes me to be here, and I stay with Barnes and Clara 
by grandmamma’s orders. Don’t you know that I have been made 
over to Lady Kew, who has adopted me ? Do you think a young 
lady of my pretensions can stop at home in a damp house in 
Warwickshire and cut bread-and-butter for little boys at school 1 ? 
Don’t look so very grave and shake your head so, Mrs. Pendennis ! 
If you had been bred as I have, you would be as I am. I know 
what you are thinking, madam.” 

“I am thinking,” said Laura, blushing and bowing her head — 
“I am thinking, if it pleases God to give me children, I should 
like to live at home at Fairoaks.” My wife’s thoughts, though she 
did not utter them, and a certain modesty and habitual awe kept 
her silent upon subjects so very sacred, went deeper yet. She had 
been bred to measure her actions by a standard, which the world 
may nominally admit, but which it leaves for the most part un- 
heeded. Worship, love, duty, as taught her by the devout study 
of the Sacred Law which interprets and defines it — if these formed 
the outward practice of her life, they were also its constant and 
secret endeavours and occupation. She spoke but very seldom 
of her religion, though it filled her heart and influenced all her 
behaviour. Whenever she came to that sacred subject, her de- 
meanour appeared to her husband so awful that he scarcely dared 
to approach it in her company, and stood without as this pure 
creature entered into the Holy of Holies. What must the world 
appear to such a person ? Its ambitions, rewards, disappointments, 
pleasures, worth how much? Compared to the possession of that 
priceless treasure and happiness unspeakable, a perfect faith, what 
has life to offer ? I see before me now her sweet grave face as she 
looks out from the balcony of the little Richmond villa we occupied 
during the first happy year after our marriage, following Ethel 
Newcome, who rides away, with a staid groom behind her, to her 


THE NEWCOMES 


531 


brother’s summer residence, not far distant. Clive had been with 
us in the morning, and had brought us stirring news. The good 
Colonel was by this time on his way home. “ If Clive could tear 
himself away from London,” the good man wrote (and we thus saw 
he was acquainted with the state of the young man’s mind), “why 
should not Clive go and meet his father at Malta?” He was 
feverish and eager to go ; and his two friends strongly counselled 
him to take the journey. In the midst of our talk Miss Ethel 
came among us. She arrived flushed and in high spirits; she 
rallied Clive upon his gloomy looks ; she turned rather pale, as it 
seemed to us, when she heard the news. Then she coldly told him 
she thought the voyage must be a pleasant one, and would do him 
good : it was pleasanter than that journey she was going to take 
herself with her grandmother, to those dreary German springs which 
the old Countess frequented year after year. Mr. Pendennis, hav- 
ing business, retired to his study, whither presently Mrs. Laura 
followed, having to look for her scissors, or a book she wanted, or 
upon some pretext or other. She sat down in the conjugal study ; 
not one word did either of us say for a while about the young people 
left alone in the drawing-room yonder. Laura talked about our 
own home at Fairoaks, which our tenants were about to vacate. 
She vowed and declared that we must live at Fairoaks ; that 
Clavering, with all its tittle-tattle and stupid inhabitants, was 
better than this wicked London. Besides, there were some new 
and very pleasant families settled in the neighbourhood. Clavering 
Park was taken by some delightful people — “ and you know, Pen, 
you were always very fond of fly-fishing, and may fish the Brawl, as 

you used in old days, when- ” The lips of the pretty satirist who 

alluded to these unpleasant bygones were silenced as they deserved 
to be by Mr. Pendennis. “Do you think, sir, I did not know,” 
says the sweetest voice in the world, “ when you went out on your 
fishing excursions with Miss Amory 1 ” Again the flow of words is 
checked by the styptic previously applied. 

“I wonder,” says Mr. Pendennis archly, bending over his wife’s 
fair hand,— “ I wonder whether this kind of thing is taking place 
in the drawing-room 1 ” 

“ Nonsense, Arthur. It is time to go back to them. Why, I 
declare I have been three-quarters of an hour away ! ” 

“ I don’t think they will much miss you, my dear,” says the 
gentleman. 

“ She is certainly very fond of him. She is always coming here. 
I am sure it is not to hear you read Shakspeare, Arthur ; or your 
new novel, though it is very pretty. I wish Lady Kew and her 
sixty thousand pounds were at the bottom of the sea,” 


532 


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“ But she says she is going to portion her younger brothers with 
a part of it ; she told Clive so,” remarks Mr. Pendennis. 

“For shame! Why does not Barnes Newcome portion his 

younger brothers ? I have no patience with that Why ! 

Goodness ! There is Clive going away, actually ! Clive ! Mr. 
Newcome ! ” But though my wife ran to the study window and 
beckoned our friend, he only shook his head, jumped on his horse, 
and rode away gloomily 

“ Ethel had been crying when I went into the room,” Laura 
afterwards told me. “ I knew she had ; but she looked up from 
some flowers over which she was bending, began to laugh and rattle, 
would talk about nothing but Lady Hautbois’ great breakfast the 
day before, and the most insufferable Mayfair jargon ; and then 
declared it was time to go home to dress for Mrs. Booth’s dejeuner , 
which was to take place that afternoon.” 

And so Miss Newcome rode away — back amongst the roses and 
the rouges — back amongst the fiddling, flirting, flattery, falseness — 
and Laura’s sweet serene face looked after her departing. Mrs. 
Booth’s was $ very grand dejeuner. We read in the newspapers a 
list of the greatest names there: a Royal Duke and Duchess, a 
German Highness, a Hindoo Nabob, &c. ; and amongst the 
Marquises, Farintosh ; and amongst the Lords, Highgate ; and 
Lady Clara Newcome and Miss Newcome, who looked killing, our 
acquaintance Captain Crackthorpe informs us, and who was in per- 
fectly stunning spirits. “ His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke 
of Farintosh is wild about her,” the Captain said, “and our poor 
young friend Clive may just go and hang himself. Dine with us 
at the ‘Gar and Starter’? Jolly party. Oh, I forgot! married 
man now ! ” So saying, the Captain entered the hostelry near 
which I met him, leaving this present chronicler to return to his 
own home. 


CHAPTER LI 

AN OLD FRIEND 


I MIGHT open the present chapter as a contemporary writer of 
Romance is occasionally in the habit of commencing his tales of 
Chivalry, by a description of a November afternoon, with falling 
leaves, tawny forests, gathering storms, and other autumnal pheno- 
mena ; and two horsemen winding up the romantic road which leads 
from — from Richmond Bridge to the “ Star and Garter.” The one 
rider is youthful, and has a blonde mustachio ; the cheek of the 
other has been browned by foreign suns ; it is easy to see by the 
manner in which he bestrides his powerful charger that he has 
followed the profession of arms. He looks as if he had faced his 
country’s enemies on many a field of Eastern battle. The cavaliers 
alight before the gate of a cottage on Richmond Hill, where a 
gentleman receives them with eager welcome. Their steeds are 
accommodated at a neighbouring hostelry, — I pause in the midst 
of the description, for the reader has made the acquaintance of our 
two horsemen long since. It is Clive returned from Malta, from 
Gibraltar, from Seville, from Cadiz, and with him our dear old friend 
the Colonel. His campaigns are over, his sword is hung up, he 
leaves Eastern suns and battles to warm young blood. Welcome 
back to England, dear Colonel and kind friend ! How quickly the 
years have passed since he has been gone ! There is a streak or 
two more silver in his hair. The wrinkles about his honest eyes 
are somewhat deeper, but their look is as steadfast and kind as in 
the early, almost boyish days when we first knew him. 

We talk awhile about the Colonel’s voyage home, the pleasures 
of the Spanish journey, the handsome new quarters in which Clive 
has installed his father and himself, my own altered condition in 
life, and what not. During the conversation a little querulous voice 
makes itself audible abovestairs, at which noise Mr. Clive begins to 
laugh, and the Colonel to smile. It is for the first time in his life 
Mr. Clive listens to the little voice ; indeed, it is only since about 
six weeks that that small organ has been heard in the world 
at all. Laura Pendennis believes its tones to be the sweetest, 
the most interesting, the most mirth-inspiring, the most pitiful and 


53 4 


THE NEWCOMES 


pathetic, that ever baby uttered ; which opinions, of course, are 
backed by Mrs. Hokey, the confidential nurse. Laura’s husband 
is not so rapturous ; but, let us trust, behaves in a way becoming 
a man and a father. We forego the description of his feelings as 
not pertaining to the history at present under consideration. A 
little while before the dinner is served, the lady of the cottage 
comes down to greet her husband’s old friends. 

And here I am sorely tempted to a third description, which 
has nothing to do with the story to be sure, but which, if properly 
hit off, might fill half a page very prettily. For is not a young 
mother one of the sweetest sights which life shows us ? If she has 
been beautiful before, does not her present pure joy give a character 
of refinement and sacredness almost to her beauty, touch her sweet 
cheeks with fairer blushes, and impart I know not what serene bright- 
ness to her eyes'? I give warning to the artist who designs the 
pictures for this veracious story, to make no attempt at this subject. 
I never would be satisfied with it were his drawing ever so good. 

When Sir Charles Grandison stepped up and made his very 
beautifullest bow to Miss Byron, I am sure his gracious dignity 
never exceeded that of Colonel Newcome’s first greeting to Mrs. 
Pendennis. Of course from the very moment they beheld one 
another they became friends. Are not most of our likings thus 
instantaneous? Before she came down to see him, Laura had 
put on one of the Colonel’s shawls — the crimson one, with the 
red palm-leaves and the border of many colours. As for the white 
one, the priceless, the gossamer, the fairy web, which might pass 
through a ring, that, every lady must be aware, was already ap- 
propriated to cover the cradle, or what I believe is called the 
bassinet, of Master Pendennis. 

So we all became the very best of friends ; and during the winter 
months, whilst we still resided at Richmond, the Colonel was my 
wife’s constant visitor. He often came without Clive. He did 
not care for the world which the young gentleman frequented, and was 
more pleased and at home by my wife’s fireside than at more noisy 
and splendid entertainments. And Laura being a sentimental person 
interested in pathetic novels and all unhappy attachments, of course 
she and the Colonel talked a great deal about Mr. Clive’s little affair, 
over which they would have such deep confabulations, that even 
when the master of the house appeared, Paterfamilias, the man whom, 
in the presence of the Rev. Dr. Portman, Mrs. Laura had sworn 
to love, honour, &c., these two guilty ones would be silent, or 
change the subject of conversation, not caring to admit such an un- 
sympathising person as myself into their conspiracy. 

From many a talk which they have had together since the 


THE NEWCOMES 


535 


Colonel and his son embraced at Malta, Clive’s father had been 
led to see how strongly the passion, which our friend had once 
fought and mastered, had now taken possession of the young man. 
The unsatisfied longing left him indifferent to all other objects of 
previous desire or ambition. The misfortune darkened the sunshine 
of his spirit, and clouded the world before his eyes. He. passed 
hours in his painting-room, though he tore up what he did there. 
He forsook his usual haunts, or appeared amongst his old comrades 
moody and silent. From cigar-smoking, which I own to be a re- 
prehensible practice, he plunged into still deeper and darker dissipa- 
tion ; for I am sorry to say he took to pipes and the strongest 
tobacco, for which there is no excuse. Our young man was changed. 
During the last fifteen or twenty months the malady had been 
increasing on him, of which we have not chosen to describe at length 
the stages ; knowing very well that the reader (the male reader at 
least) does not care a fig about other people’s sentimental per- 
plexities, and is not wrapped up heart and soul in Clive’s affairs 
like his father, whose rest was disturbed if the boy had a headache, 
or who would have stripped the coat off his back to keep his 
darling’s feet warm. 

The object of this hopeless passion had, meantime, returned to 
the custody of the dark old duenna, from which she had been 
liberated for a while. Lady Kew had got her health again, by 
means of the prescriptions of some doctors, or by the efficacy of 
some baths; and was again on foot and in the world, tramping 
about in her grim pursuit of pleasure. Lady Julia, we are led to 
believe, had retired upon half-pay, and into an inglorious exile 
at Brussels, with her sister, the outlaw’s wife, by whose bankrupt 
fireside she was perfectly happy. Miss Newcome was now her 
grandmother’s companion, and they had been on a tour of visits 
in Scotland, and were journeying from country house to country 
house about the time when our good Colonel returned to his 
native shores. 

The Colonel loved his nephew Barnes no better than before 
perhaps, though we must say, that since his return from India the 
young baronet’s conduct had been particularly friendly. “No 
doubt marriage had improved him ; Lady Clara seemed a good- 
natured young woman enough ; besides,” says the Colonel, wagging 
his good old head knowingly, “ Tom Newcome of the Bundelcund 
Bank is a personage to be conciliated ; whereas Tom Newcome of 
the Bengal Cavalry was not worth Master Barnes’s attention. He 
has been very good and kind on the whole ; so have his friends been 
uncommonly civil. There was Clive’s acquaintance, Mr. Belsize 
that was, Lord Highgate who is now, entertained our whole family 


536 


THE NEWCOMES 


sumptuously last week ; wants us and Barnes and his wife to go to 
his country house at Christmas ; is as hospitable, my dear Mrs. 
Pendennis, as man can be. He met you at Barnes’s, and as soon 
as we are alone,” says the Colonel, turning round to Laura’s 
husband, “ I will tell you in what terms Lady Clara speaks of 
your wife. Yes. She is a good-natured kind little woman, that 
Lady Clara.” Here Laura’s face assumed that gravity and severe- 
ness which it always wore when Lady Clara’s name was mentioned, 
and the conversation took another turn. 

Returning home from London one afternoon, I met the Colonel, 
who hailed me on the omnibus and rode on his way towards the 
City. I knew, of course, that he had been colloguing with my 
wife ; and taxed that young woman with these continued flirtations. 
“Two or three times a week, Mrs. Laura, you dare to receive a 
Colonel of Dragoons. You sit for hours closeted with the young 
fellow of sixty; you change the conversation when your own 
injured husband enters the room, and pretend to talk about the 
weather, or the baby. You little arch-hypocrite, you know you 
do. — Don’t try to humbug me, miss ; what will Richmond, what 
will society, what will Mrs. Grundy in general say to such atro- 
cious behaviour % ” 

“ 0 Pen,” says my wife, closing my mouth in a way which 
I do not choose further to particularise ; “ that man is the best, 
the dearest, the kindest creature. I never knew such a good man ; 
you ought to put him into a book. Do you know, sir, that I felt 
the very greatest desire to give him a kiss when he went away ; 
and that one which you had just now was intended for him.” 

“ Take back thy gift, false girl ! ” says Mr. Pendennis ; and then, 
finally, we come to the particular circumstance which had occasioned 
so much enthusiasm on Mrs. Laura’s part. 

Colonel Newcome had summoned heart of grace, and in Clive’s 
behalf had regularly proposed him to Barnes, as a suitor to Ethel ; 
taking an artful advantage of his nephew Barnes Newcome, and 
inviting that Baronet to a private meeting, where they were to talk 
about the affairs of the Bundelcund Banking Company. 

Now this Bundelcund Banking Company, in the Colonel’s eyes, 
was in reality his son Clive. But for Clive there might have been 
a hundred banking companies established, yielding a hundred per 
cent, in as many districts of India, and Thomas Newcome, who 
had plenty of money for his own wants, would never have thought 
of speculation. His desire w T as to see his boy endowed with all 
the possible gifts of fortune. Had he built a palace for Clive, and 
been informed that a roc’s egg was required to complete the decora- 
tion of the edifice, Tom Newcome would have travelled to the 


THE NEWCOMES 


537 


world’s end in search of the wanting article. To see Prince Clive 
ride in a gold coach with a princess beside him, was the kind old 
Colonel’s ambition ; that done, he would be content to retire to a 
garret in the prince’s castle, and smoke his cheroot there in peace. 
So the world is made. The strong and eager covet honour and 
enjoyment for themselves ; the gentle and disappointed (once they 
may have been strong and eager too) desire these gifts for their 
children. I think Clive’s father never liked or understood the lad’s 
choice of a profession. He acquiesced in it, as he would in any of 
his son’s wishes. But, not being a poet himself, he could not see 
the nobility of that calling ; and felt secretly that his son was 
demeaning himself by pursuing the art of painting. “Had he 
been a soldier, now,” thought Thomas Newcome, “ (though I pre- 
vented that), had he been richer than he is, he might have married 
Ethel, instead of being unhappy as he now is, God help him ! I 
remember my own time of grief well enough, and what years it 
took before my wound was scarred over.” 

So with these things occupying his brain, Thomas Newcome 
artfully invited Barnes, his nephew, to dinner, under pretence of 
talking of the affairs of the great B. B. C. With the first glass of 
wine at dessert, and according to the Colonel’s good old-fashioned 
custom of proposing toasts, they drank the health of the B. B. C. 
Barnes drank the toast with all his generous heart. The B. B. C. 
sent to Hobson Brothers and Newcome a great deal of business, was 
in a most prosperous condition, kept a great balance at the bank, — 
a balance that would not be overdrawn, as Sir Barnes Newcome 
very well knew. Barnes was for having more of these bills, pro- 
vided there were remittances to meet the same. Barnes was ready 
to do any amount of business with the Indian bank, or with any 
bank, or with any individual, Christian or heathen, white or black, 
who could do good to the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome. 
He spoke upon this subject with great archness and candour : of 
course as a City man he would be glad to do a profitable business 
anywhere, and the B. B. C.’s business was profitable. But the 
interested motive, which lie admitted frankly as a man of the 
world, did not prevent other sentiments more agreeable. “ My 
dear Colonel,” says Barnes, “ I am happy, most happy, to think 
that our house and our name should have been useful, as I know 
they have been, in the establishment of a concern in which one of 
our family is interested ; one whom we all so sincerely respect and 
regard.” And he touched his glass with his lips and blushed a 
little, as he bowed towards his uncle. He found himself making 
a little speech, indeed ; and to do so before one single person seems 
rather odd. Had there been a large company present, Barnes 


538 


THE NEWCOMES 


would not have blushed at all, but have tossed off his glass, struck 
his waistcoat possibly, and looked straight in the face of his uncle 
as the chairman ; well, he did very likely believe that he respected 
and regarded the Colonel. 

The Colonel said, “ Thank you, Barnes, with all my heart. It 
is always good for men to be friends, much more for blood relations, 
as we are.” 

“ A relationship which honours me, I’m sure ! ” says Barnes, 
with a tone of infinite affability. You see he believed that Heaven 
had made him the Colonel’s superior. 

“And I am very glad,” the elder went on, “that you and my 
boy are good friends.” 

“ Friends ! of course. It would be unnatural if such near 
relatives were otherwise than good friends.” 

“You have been hospitable to him, and Lady Clara very kind, 
and he wrote to me telling me of your kindness. Ahem ! this is 
tolerable claret. I wonder where Clive gets it 1 ” 

“ You were speaking about that indigo, Colonel ! ” here Barnes 
interposes. “Our house has done very little in that way, to be 
sure ; but I suppose that our credit is about as good as Baines and 
Jolly’s, and if ” but the Colonel is in a brown study. 

“ Clive will have a good bit of money when I die,” resumes 
Clive’s father. 

“ Why, you are a hale man — upon my word, quite a young man, 
and may marry again, Colonel,” replies the nephew fascinatingly. 

“ I shall never do that,” replies the other. “ Ere many years 
are gone, I shall be seventy years old, Barnes.” 

“ Nothing in this country, my dear sir ! positively nothing. 
Why, there was Titus, my neighbour in the country — when will 
you come down to Newcome ? — who married a devilish pretty girl, 
of very good family too, Miss Burgeon, one of the Devonshire 
Burgeons. He looks, I am sure, twenty years older than you do. 
Why should not you do likewise 1 ” 

“ Because I like to remain single, and want to leave Clive a rich 
man. Look here, Barnes, you know the value of our bank shares 
now h ” 

“ Indeed I do ; rather speculative ; but of course I know what 
some sold for last week,” says Barnes. 

“ Suppose I realise now. I think I am worth six lakhs. I had 
nearly two from my poor father. I saved some before and since 
I invested in this affair ; and could sell out to-morrow with sixty 
thousand pounds.” 

“A very pretty sum of money, Colonel,” says Barnes. 

“ I have a pension of a thousand a year.” 







THE NEWCOMES 539 

“ My dear Colonel, you are a capitalist ! we know it very well,” 
remarks Sir Barnes. 

“ And two hundred a year is as much as I want for myself,” 
continues the capitalist, looking into the fire, and jingling his money 
in his pockets. “ A hundred a year for a horse ; a hundred a year 
for pocket-money, for I calculate, you know, that Clive will give me 
a bedroom and my dinner.” 

“ He — he ! If your son won’t, your nephew will, my dear 

Colonel ! ” says the affable Barnes, smiling sweetly. 

“ I can give the boy a handsome allowance, you see,” resumes 
Thomas Newcome. 

“ You can make him a handsome allowance now, and leave him 
a good fortune when you die ! ” says the nephew, in a noble and 
courageous manner, — and as if he said Twelve times twelve are 
a hundred and forty-four, and you have Sir Barnes Newcome’s 
authority — Sir Barnes Newcome’s, mind you — to say so. 

“Not when I die, Barnes,” the uncle goes on. “I will give him 
every shilling I am worth to-morrow morning, if he marries as I 
wish him.” 

“ Tant mieux pour lui ! ” cries the nephew ; and thought to 
himself, “ Lady Clara must ask Clive to dinner instantly. Confound 
the fellow ! I hate him — always have ; but what luck he has ! ” 

“A man with that property may pretend to a good wife, as the 
French say ; hey, Barnes ? ” asks the Colonel, rather eagerly, looking 
up in his nephew’s face. 

That countenance was lighted up with a generous enthusiasm. 
“ To any woman, in any rank — to a nobleman’s daughter, my dear 
sir ! ” exclaims Sir Barnes. 

“ I want your sister ; I want my dear Ethel for him, Barnes,” 
cries Thomas Newcome, with a trembling voice, and a twinkle in 
his eyes. “ That was the hope I always had till my talk with your 
poor father stopped it. Your sister was engaged to my Lord Kew 
then ; and my wishes of course were impossible. The poor boy is 
very much cut up, and his whole heart is bent upon possessing her. 
She is not, she can’t be, indifferent to him. I am sure she would 
not be, if her family in the least encouraged him. Can either of 
these young folks have a better chance of happiness again offered 
to them in life ? There’s youth, there’s mutual liking, there’s wealth 
for them almost — only saddled with the incumbrance of an old 
dragoon, who won’t be much in their way. Give us your good word, 
Barnes, and let them come together ; and upon my word the rest of 
my days will be made happy if I can eat my meal at their table.” 

Whilst the poor Colonel was making his appeal Barnes had time 
to collect his answer ; which, since in our character of historians we 


540 


THE NEWCOMES 


take leave to explain gentlemen’s motives as well as record their 
speeches and actions, we may thus interpret. “ Confound the young 
beggar ! ” thinks Barnes then. “ He will have three or four thou- 
sand a year, will he 1 ? Hang him, but it’s a good sum of money. 
What a fool his father is to give it away! Is he joking 1 ? No, 
he was always half-crazy — the Colonel. Highgate seemed un- 
commonly sweet on her, and was always hanging about our house. 
Farintosh has not been brought to book yet; and perhaps neither 
of them will propose for her. My grandmother, I should think, 
won’t hear of her making a low marriage, as this certainly is : but 
it’s a pity to throw away four thousand a year, ain’t it?” All 
these natural calculations passed briskly through Barnes Newcome’s 
mind, as his uncle, from the opposite side of the fireplace, implored 
him in the above little speech. 

“ My dear Colonel,” said Barnes, “ my dear, kind Colonel ! I 
needn’t tell you that your proposal flatters us, as much as your 
extraordinary generosity surprises me. I never heard anything like 
it — never. Could I consult my own wishes, I would at once — I 
would, permit me to say, from sheer admiration of your noble 
character, say yes, with all my heart, to your proposal. But, alas, 
I haven’t that power.” 

“Is — is she engaged?” asks the Colonel, looking as blank and 
sad as Clive himself when Ethel had conversed with him. 

“No — I cannot say engaged — though a person of the very 
highest rank has paid her the most marked attention. But my 
sister has, in a way, gone from our family, and from my influence 
as the head of it — an influence which I, I am sure, had most gladly 
exercised in your favour. My grandmother, Lady Kew, has adopted 
her; purposes, I believe, to leave Ethel the greater part of her 
fortune, upon certain conditions ; and, of course, expects the — the 
obedience, and so forth, which is customary in such cases. By 
the way, Colonel, is our young soupirant aware that papa is 
pleading his cause for him ? ” 

The Colonel said no ; and Barnes lauded the caution which his 
uncle had displayed. It was quite as well for the young man’s 
interests (which Sir Barnes had most tenderly at heart) that Clive 
Newcome should not himself move in the affair, or present himself 
to Lady Kew. Barnes would take the matter in hand at the 
proper season ; the Colonel might be sure it would be most eagerly, 
most ardently pressed. Clive came home at this juncture, whom 
Barnes saluted affectionately. He and the Colonel had talked over 
their money business ; their conversation had been most satisfactory, 
thank you. “Has it not, Colonel?” The three parted the very 
best of friends. 


THE NEWCOMES 


541 


As Barnes Newcome professed that extreme interest for his 
cousin and uncle, it is odd he did not tell them that Lady Kew 
and Miss Ethel Newcome were at that moment within a mile of 
them, at her Ladyship’s house in Queen Street, Mayfair. In the 
hearing of Clive’s servant, Barnes did not order his brougham to 
drive to Queen Street, but "waited until he was in Bond Street 
before he gave the order. 

And, of course, when he entered Lady Kew’s house, he straight- 
way asked for his sister, and communicated to her the generous 
offer which the good Colonel had made ! 

You see Lady Kew was in town, and not in town. Her Lady- 
ship was but passing through, on her way from a tour of visits in 
the North to another tour of visits somewhere else. The news- 
papers were not even off the blinds. The proprietor of the house 
cowered over a bed-candle and a furtive teapot in the back drawing- 
room. Lady Kew’s gens were not here. The tall canary ones 
with white polls only showed their plumage and sang in spring. 
The solitary wretch who takes charge of London houses, and the 
two servants specially affected to Lady Kew’s person, were the 
only people in attendance. In fact, her Ladyship was not in town. 
And that is why no doubt Barnes Newcome said nothing about her 
being there. 


CHAPTER LII 


FAMILY SECRETS 

T HE figure cowering over the furtive teapot glowered grimly 
at Barnes as he entered ; and an old voice said — “ Ho, it’s 
you ! ” 

“I have brought you the notes, ma’am,” says Barnes, taking 
a packet of those documents from his pocket-book. “I could 
not come sooner, I have been engaged upon bank business until 
now.” 

“ I dare say ! You smell of smoke like a courier.” 

“ A foreign capitalist ; he would smoke. They will, ma’am. I 
didn’t smoke, upon my word.” 

“ I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if you like it. You will never 
get anything out of me whether you do or don’t. How is Clara ? 
Is she gone to the country with the children? Newcome is the 
best place for her.” 

“ Doctor Bambury thinks she can move in a fortnight. The 
boy has had a little ” 

“ A little fiddlestick ! I tell you it is she who likes to stay, 
and makes that fool, Bambury, advise her not going away. I tell 
you to send her to Newcome, the air is good for her.” 

“ By that confounded smoky town, my dear Lady Kew?” 

“And invite your mother and little brothers and sisters to stay 
Christmas there. The way in which you neglect them is shameful ; 
it is, Barnes.” 

“ Upon my word, ma’am, I propose to manage my own affairs 
without your Ladyship’s assistance,” cries Barnes, starting up ; “and 

do not come at this time of night to hear this kind of ” 

“ Of good advice. I sent for you to give it you. When I wrote 
to you to bring me the money I wanted, it was but a pretext ; 
Barkins might have fetched it from the City in the morning. I 
want you to send Clara and the children to Newcome. They ought 
to go, sir, that is why I sent for you ; to tell you that. Have you 
been quarrelling as much as usual ? ” 

“ Pretty much as usual,” says Barnes, drumming on his hat. 

“ Don’t beat that devil’s tattoo ; you agacez my poor old nerves. 


THE NEWCOMES 54 3 

When Clara was given to you she was as well broke a girl as any in 
London.” 

Sir Barnes responded by a groan. 

“ She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a 
girl as could be ; a little vacant and silly, but you men like dolls 
for your wives; and now in three years you have utterly spoiled 
her. She is restive, she is artful, she flies into rages, she fights you 
and beats you. He ! he ! and that comes of your beating her ! ” 

“ I didn’t come to hear this, ma’am,” says Barnes, livid with 
rage. 

“ You struck her ; you know you did, Sir Barnes Newcome. She 
rushed over to me last year on the night you did it ; you know she 
did.” 

“ Great God, ma’am ! You know the provocation,” screams 
Barnes. 

“ Provocation or not, I don’t say. But from that moment she 
has beat you. You fool, to write her a letter and ask her pardon ! 
If I had been a man, I would rather have strangled my wife than 
have humiliated myself so before her. She will never forgive that 
blow.” 

“ I was mad when I did it ; and she drove me mad,” says 
Barnes. “ She has the temper of a fiend, and the ingenuity of the 
devil. In two years an entire change has come over her. If I 
had used a knife to her I should not have been surprised. But it 
is not with you to reproach me about Clara. Your Ladyship found 
her for me.” 

“ And you spoilt her after she was found, sir. She told me 
part of her story that night she came to me. I know it is true, 
Barnes. You have treated her dreadfully, sir.” 

“ I know that she makes my life miserable, and there is no help 
for it,” says Barnes, grinding a curse between his teeth. “Well, 
well, no more about this. How t is Ethel ? Gone to sleep after 
her journey 1 What do you think, ma’am, I have brought for her 'i 
A proposal.” 

“ Bon Dieu ! You don’t mean to say Charles Belsize was in 
earnest ! ” cries the Dowager. “ I always thought it was a ” 

“It is not from Lord Highgate, ma’am,” Sir Barnes said 
gloomily. “ It is some time since I have known that he was not in 
earnest ; and he knows that I am now.” 

“ Gracious goodness ! come to blows with him too 1 You have 
not 1 That would be the very thing to make the world talk,” says 
the Dowager, with some anxiety. 

“ No,” answers Barnes. “ He knows well enough that there 
can be no open rupture. We had some words the other day at a 


544 


THE NEWCOMES 


dinner he gave at his own house; Colonel Newcome, and that 
young beggar Clive, and that fool Mr. Hobson, were there. Lord 
Highgate was confoundedly insolent. He told me that I did not 
dare to quarrel with him because of the account he kept at our 
house. I should like to have massacred him ! She has told him 
that I struck her, — the insolent brute ! — he says he will tell it at 
my clubs ; and threatens personal violence to me, there, if I do it 
again. Lady Kew, I’m not safe from that man and that woman,” 
cries poor Barnes, in an agony of terror. 

“ Fighting is Jack Belsize’s business, Barnes Newcome ; bank- 
ing is yours, luckily,” said the Dowager. “ As old Lord Highgate 
was to die, and his eldest son too, it is a pity certainly they had 
not died a year or two earlier, and left poor Clara and Charles to 
come together. You should have married some woman in the 
serious way; my daughter Walham could have found you one. 
Frank, I am told, and his wife go on very sweetly together ; her 
mother-in-law governs the whole family. They have turned the 
theatre back into a chapel again : they have six little ploughboys 
dressed in surplices to sing the service ; and Frank and the Yicar 
of Kewbury play at cricket with them on holidays. Stay, why 
should not Clara go to Kewbury h ” 

“ She and her sister have quarrelled about this very affair with 
Lord Highgate. Some time ago it appears they had words about 
it, and when I told Kew that bygones had best be bygones, that 
Highgate was very sweet upon Ethel now, and that I did not choose 
to lose such a good account as his, Kew was very insolent to me ; 
his conduct was blackguardly, ma’am, quite blackguardly, and you 
may be sure but for our relationship I would have called him 


Here the talk between Barnes and his ancestress was interrupted 
by the appearance of Miss Ethel Newcome, taper in hand, who 
descended from the upper regions enveloped in a shawl. 

“ How do you do, Barnes h How is Clara 1 I long to see my 
little nephew. Is he like his pretty papa 1 ” cries the young lady, 
giving her fair cheek to her brother. 

“ Scotland has agreed with our Newcome rose,” says Barnes 
gallantly. “ My dear Ethel, I never saw you in greater beauty.” 

“ By the light of one bedroom candle ! what should I be if the 
whole room were lighted 1 You would see my face then was 
covered all over with wrinkles, and quite pale and woebegone, with 
the dreariness of the Scotch journey. Oh, what a time we have 
spent ! haven’t we grandmamma 1 I never wish to go to a great 
castle again ; above all, I never wish to go to a little shooting-box. 
Scotland may be very well for men ; but for women — allow me to 


THE NEWCOMES 


545 


go to Paris when next there is talk of a Scotch expedition. I had 
rather be in a boarding-school in the Champs Elysdes than in the 
finest castle in the Highlands. If it had not been for a blessed 
quarrel with Fanny Follington, I think I should have died at Glen 
Shorthorn. Have you seen my dear, dear uncle, the Colonel? 
When did he arrive ? ” 

“ Is he come ? AVhy is he come ? ” asks Lady Kew. 

“ Is he come ? Look here, grandmamma ! did you ever see 
such a darling shawl ? I found it in a packet in my room.” 

“Well, it is beautiful,” cries the Dowager, bending her ancient 
nose over the web. “Your Colonel is a galant homme. That 
must be said of him ; and in this does not quite take after the rest 
of the family. Hum ! Hum ! Is he going away again soon ? ” 

“ He has made a fortune, a very considerable fortune for a man 
in that rank in life,” says Sir Barnes. “He cannot have less than 
sixty thousand pounds.” 

“ Is that much ? ” asks Ethel. 

“ Not in England, at our rate of interest ; but his money is in 
India, where he gets a great percentage. His income must be five 
or six thousand pounds, ma’am,” says Barnes, turning to Lady Kew. 

“ A few of the Indians were in society in my time, my dear,” 
says Lady Kew musingly. “My father has often talked to me 
about Barwell of Stanstead, and his house in St. James’s Square ; 
the man who ordered ‘more curricles’ when there were not car- 
riages enough for his guests. I was taken to Mr. Hastings’s trial. 
It was very stupid and long. The young man, the painter, I sup- 
pose will leave his paint-pots now, and set up as a gentleman. I 
suppose they were very poor, or his father woidd not have put him 
to such a profession. Barnes, why did you not make him a clerk 
in the bank, and save him from the humiliation ? ” 

“ Humiliation ! why, he is proud of it ! My uncle is as proud 
as a Plantagenet ; though he is as humble as — as what? Give me 
a simile, Barnes. Do you know what my quarrel with Fanny 
Follington was about ? She said we were not descended from the 
barber-surgeon, and laughed at the Battle of Bosworth. She says 
our great-grandfather was a weaver. Was he a weaver ? ” 

“How should I know? and what on earth does it matter, 
my child? Except the Gaunts, the Howards, and one or two 
more, there is scarcely any good blood in England. You are lucky 
in sharing some of mine. My poor Lord Kew’s grandfather was an 
apothecary at Hampton Court, and founded the family by giving 
a dose of rhubarb to Queen Caroline. As a rule, nobody is of 
a good family. Didn’t that young man, that son of the Colonel’s, 
go about last year? How did he get in society? Where did we 
8 2 m 


546 


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meet him ? Oh ! at Baden, yes ; when Barnes was courting, and 
my grandson — yes, my grandson — acted so wickedly.” Here she 
began to cough, and to tremble so, that her old stick shook under 
her hand. “ Ring the bell for Ross. Ross, I will go to bed. Go 
you too, Ethel. You have been travelling enough to-day.” 

“ Her memory seems to fail her a little,” Ethel whispered to 
her brother; “or she will only remember what she wishes. Don’t 
you see that she has grown very much older ? ” 

“ I will be with her in the morning. I have business with her,” 
said Barnes. 

“ Good-night. Give my love to Clara, and kiss the little ones 
for me. Have you done what you promised me, Barnes 1 ” 

“What?” 

“ To be — to be kind to Clara. Don’t say cruel things to her. 
She has a high spirit, and she feels them, though she says nothing.” 

“ Doesn’t she ? ” says Barnes grimly. 

“Ah, Barnes, be gentle with her. Seldom as I saw you to- 
gether, when I lived with you in the spring, I could see that you 
were harsh, though she affected to laugh when she spoke of your 
conduct to her. Be kind. I am sure it is the best, Barnes ; better 
than all the wit in the world. Look at grandmamma, how witty 
she was and is ; what a reputation she had, how people were afraid 
of her ; and see her now — quite alone.” 

“ I’ll see her in the morning quite alone, my dear,” says Barnes, 
waving a little gloved hand. “ By-by ! ” and his brougham drove 
away. While Ethel Newcome had been under her brother’s roof, 
where I and friend Clive, and scores of others had been smartly 
entertained, there had been quarrels and recriminations, misery and 
heartburning, cruel words and shameful struggles, the wretched 
combatants in which appeared before the world with smiling faces, 
resuming their battle when the feast was concluded and the com- 
pany gone. 

On the next morning, when Barnes came to visit his grand- 
mother, Miss Newcome was gone away to see her sister-in-law, Lady 
Kew said, with whom she was going to pass the morning; so 
Barnes and Lady Kew had an uninterrupted tete-a-tete , in which 
the former acquainted the old lady with the proposal which Colonel 
Newcome had made to him on the previous night. 

Lady Kew wondered what the impudence of the world would 
come to. An artist propose for Ethel ! One of her footmen might 
propose next, and she supposed Barnes would bring the message. 
“ The father came and proposed for this young painter, and you 
didn’t order him out of the room ! ” 

Barnes laughed. “The Colonel is one of my constituents. 


THE NEWCOMES 547 

I can’t afford to order one of the Bundelcund Banking Company 
out of its own room.” 

“You did not tell Ethel this pretty news, I suppose ? ” 

“Of course I didn’t tell Ethel. Nor did I tell the Colonel 
that Ethel was in London. He fancies her in Scotland with your 
Ladyship at this moment.” 

“ I wish the Colonel were at Calcutta ; and his son with him. 
I wish he was in the Ganges; I ‘wish he was under Juggernaut’s 
car,” cries the old lady. “ How much money has the wretch really 
got ? If he is of importance to the bank, of course you must keep 
well with him. Five thousand a year, and he says he will settle 
it all on his son ? He must he crazy. There is nothing some of 
these people will not do, no sacrifice they will not make, to ally 
themselves with good families. Certainly you must remain on good 
terms with him and his bank. And we must say nothing of the 
business to Ethel, and trot out of town as quickly as we can. Let 
me see. We go to Drummington on Saturday. This is Tuesday. 
Barkins, you will keep the front drawing-room shutters shut, and 
remember we are not in town, unless Lady Glenlivat or Lord 
Farintosh should call.” 

“Do you think Farintosh will — will call, ma’am 1 ?” asked Sir 
Barnes demurely. 

“ He will be going through to Newmarket. He has been 
where we have been at two or three places in Scotland,” replies 
the lady, with equal gravity. “ His poor mother wishes him to 
give up his bachelor’s life — as well she may — for you young men 
are terribly dissipated. Rossmont is quite a regal place. His 
Norfolk house is not inferior. A young man of that station ought 
to marry, and live at his places, and be an example to his people, 
instead of frittering away his time at Paris and Vienna amongst 
the most odious company.” 

“ Is he going to Drummington ? ” asks the grandson. 

“ I believe he has been invited. We shall go to Paris for 
November; he probably will be there,” answered the Dowager 
casually ; “ and tired of the dissipated life he has been leading, let 
us hope lie will mend his ways, and find a virtuous, well-bred young 
woman to keep him right.” With this her Ladyship’s apothecary 
is announced, and her banker and grandson takes his leave. 

Sir Barnes walked into the City with his umbrella, read his 
letters, conferred with his partners and confidential clerks ; was for 
a while not the exasperated husband, or the affectionate brother, 
or the amiable grandson, but the shrewd, brisk banker, engaged 
entirely with his business. Presently he had occasion to go on 
’Change, or elsewhere, to confer with brother capitalists, and in 


548 


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Cornhill behold he meets his uncle, Colonel Newcome, riding 
towards the India House, a groom behind him. 

The Colonel springs off his horse, and Barnes greets him in the 
blandest manner. “ Have you any news for me, Barnes 1 ” cries 
the officer. 

“The accounts from Calcutta are remarkably good. That cotton 
is of admirable quality really. Mr. Briggs, of our house, who knows 
cotton as well as any man in England, says ” 

“ It’s not the cotton, my dear Sir Barnes,” cries the other. 

“ The bills are perfectly good ; there is no sort of difficulty about 
them. Our house will take half a million of ’em, if ” 

“You are talking of bills, and I am thinking of poor Clive,” 
the Colonel interposes. “I wish you could give me good news 
for him, Barnes.” 

“ I wish I could. I heartily trust that I may some day. 
My good wishes you know are enlisted in your son’s behalf,” 
cries Barnes gallantly. “Droll place to talk sentiment in — 
Cornhill, isn’t it? But Ethel, as I told you, is in the hands of 
higher powers, and we must conciliate Lady Kew if we can. She 
has always spoken very highly of Clive ; very.” 

“ Had I not best go to her?” asks the Colonel. 

“Into the North, my good sir? She is — ah — she is travelling 
about. I think you had best depend upon me. Good-morning. 
In the City we have no hearts, you know, Colonel. Be sure you 
shall hear from me as soon as Lady Kew and Ethel come to town.” 

And the banker hurried away, shaking his finger-tips to his 
uncle, and leaving the good Colonel utterly surprised at his state- 
ments. For the fact is, the Colonel knew that Lady Kew was in 
London, having been apprised of the circumstance in the simplest 
manner in the world, namely, by a note from Miss Ethel, which 
billet he had in his pocket, whilst he was talking with the head 
of the house of Hobson Brothers. 

“ My dear Uncle ” (the note said) — “ How glad I shall be to 
see you ! How shall I thank you for the beautiful shawl, and the 
kind kind remembrance of me? I found your present yesterday 
evening on our arrival from the North. We are only here en passant , 
and see nobody in Queen Street but Barnes, who has just been 
about business, and he does not count, you know. I shall go and 
see Clara to-morrow, and make her take me to see your pretty 
friend, Mrs. Pendennis. How glad I should be if you happened 
to pay Mrs. P. a visit about two. Good night. I thank you a 
thousand times, and am always your affectionate E. 

“ Queen Street. Tuesday Night. Twelve o'clock” 


THE NEWCOMES 


549 

This note came to Colonel Newcome’s breakfast-table, and he 
smothered the exclamation of wonder which was rising to his lips, 
not choosing to provoke the questions of Clive, who sat opposite 
to him. Clive’s father was in a woeful perplexity all that forenoon. 
“Tuesday night, twelve o’clock,” thought he. “Why, Barnes 
must have gone to his grandmother from my dinner-table ; and 
he told me she was out of town, and said so again just now 
when we met in the City.” (The Colonel was riding towards 
Richmond at this time.) “ What cause had the young man to 
tell me these lies ? Lady Kew may not wish to be at home for me, 
but need Barnes Newcome say what is untrue to mislead me? The 
fellow actually went away simpering, and kissing his hand to me, 
with a falsehood on his lips ! What a pretty villain ! A fellow 
would deserve, and has got, a horsewhipping for less. And to 
think of a Newcome doing this to his own flesh and blood ; a young 
Judas ! ” Very sad and bewildered, the Colonel rode towards 
Richmond, where he was to happen to call on Mrs. Pendennis. 

It was not much of a fib that Barnes had told. Lady Kew 
announcing that she was out of town, her grandson no doubt thought 
himself justified in saying so, as any other of her servants would 
have done. But if he had recollected how Ethel came down with 
the Colonel’s shawl on her shoulders, how it was possible she 
might have written to thank her uncle, surely Barnes Newcome 
would not have pulled that unlucky longbow. The banker had 
other things to think of than Ethel and her shawl. 

When Thomas Newcome dismounted at the door of Honey- 
moon Cottage, Richmond, the temporary residence of A. Pendennis, 
Esq., one of the handsomest young women in England ran into 
the passage with outstretched arms, called him her dear old uncle, 
and gave him two kisses, that I daresay brought blushes on his 
lean sunburnt cheeks. Ethel clung always to his affection. She 
wanted that man, rather than any other in the whole world, to 
think well of her. When she was with him, she was the amiable 
and simple, the loving impetuous creature of old times. She chose 
to think of no other. Worldliness, heartlessness, eager scheming, 
cold flirtations, marquis-hunting and the like, disappeared for a 
while — and were not, as she sat at that honest man’s side. Oh me ! 
that we should have to record such charges against Ethel Newcome! 

He was come home for good now % He would never leave that 
boy he spoiled so, who was a good boy, too ; she wished she could 
see him oftener. “At Paris, at Madame de Florae’s — I found out 
all about Madame de Florae, sir,” says Miss Ethel, with a laugh 
— “ we used often to meet there ; and here, sometimes, in London. 
But in London it was different. You know what peculiar notions 


550 


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some people have; and as I live with grandmamma, who is most 
kind to me and my brothers, of course I must obey her, and see 
her friends rather than my own. She likes going out into the 
world, and I am bound in duty to go with her,” &c. &c. Thus 
the young lady went on talking, defending herself whom nobody 
attacked, protesting her dislike to gaiety and dissipation— you 
would have fancied her an artless young country lass, only longing 
to trip back to her village, milk her cows at sunrise, and sit spin- 
ning of winter evenings by the fire. 

“Why do you come and spoil my tete-a-tete with my uncle, 
Mr. Pendennis ? ” cries the young lady to the master of the house, 
who happens to enter. “ Of all the men in the world the one I 
like best to talk to ! Does he not look younger than when he 
went to India ? When Clive marries that pretty little Miss 
Mackenzie, you will marry again, uncle, and I will be jealous of 
your wife.” 

“Did Barnes tell you that we had met last night, my dear?” 
asks the Colonel. 

“Not one word. Your shawl and your dear kind note told me 
you were come. Why did not Barnes tell us ? Why do you look 
so grave ? ” 

“ He has not told her that I was here, and would have me 
believe her absent,” thought Newcome, as his countenance fell. 
“ Shall I give her my own message, and plead my poor boy’s cause 
with her?” I know not whether he was about to lay his su^t 
before her; lie said himself subsequently that his mind was not 
made up, but at this juncture a procession of nurses and babies 
made their appearance, followed by the two mothers, who had been 
comparing their mutual prodigies (each lady having her own private 
opinion) — Lady Clara and my wife — the latter for once gracious to 
Lady Clara Newcome, in consideration of the infantine company 
with which she came to visit Mrs. Pendennis. 

Luncheon was served presently. The carriage of the Newcomes 
drove away, my wife smilingly pardoning Ethel for the assignation 
which the young person had made at our house. And when those 
ladies were gone, our good Colonel held a council of war with us 
his two friends, and told us what had happened between him and 
Barnes on that morning and the previous night. His offer to 
sacrifice every shilling of his fortune to young Clive seemed to him 
to be perfectly simple (though the recital of the circumstances 
brought tears into my wife’s eyes) — he mentioned it by the way, 
and as a matter that was scarcely to call for comment, much less 
praise. 

Barnes’s extraordinary statements respecting Lady Kew’s absence 


THE NEWCOMES 


551 


puzzled the elder Newcome ; and he spoke of his nephew’s conduct 
with much indignation. In vain I urged that her Ladyship desiring 
to he considered absent from London, her grandson was bound to 
keep her secret. “ Keep her secret, yes ! Tell me lies, no ! ” cries 
out the Colonel. Sir Barnes’s conduct was in fact indefensible, 
though not altogether unusual — the worst deduction to be drawn 
from it, in my opinion, was, that Clive’s chance with the young 
lady was but a poor one, and that Sir Barnes Newcome, inclined to 
keep his uncle in good humour, would therefore give him no dis- 
agreeable refusal. 

Now this gentleman could no more pardon a lie than he could 
utter one. He would believe all and everything a man told him 
until deceived once, after which he never forgave. And wrath 
being once roused in his simple mind, and distrust firmly fixed 
there, his anger and prejudices gathered daily. He could see no 
single good quality in his opponent; and hated him with a daily 
increasing bitterness. 

As ill-luck would have it, that very same evening, at his return 
to town, Thomas Newcome entered Bays’s Club, of which, at our 
request, he had become a member during his last visit to England, 
and there was Sir Barnes, as usual, on his way homewards from the 
City. Barnes was writing at a table, and sealing and closing a 
letter, as he saw the Colonel enter ; he thought he had been a little 
inattentive and curt with his uncle in the morning ; had remarked, 
perhaps, the expression of disapproval on the Colonel’s countenance. 
He simpered up to his uncle as the latter entered the club-room, 
and apologised for his haste when they met in the City in the 
morning — all City men were so busy ! “ And I have been writing 

about this little affair, just as you came in,” he said; “quite a 
moving letter to Lady Kew, I assure you, and I do hope and trust 
we shall have a favourable answer in a day or two.” 

“You said her Ladyship was in the North, I think 1 ?” said the 
Colonel dryly. 

“ Oh yes — in the North, at — at Lord Wallsend’s — great coal- 
proprietor, you know.” 

“And your sister is with her ] ” 

“ Ethel is always with her.” 

“ I hope you will send her my very best remembrances,” said 
the Colonel. 

“ I’ll open the letter, and add ’em in a postscript,” said Barnes. 

“ Confounded liar ! ” cried the Colonel, mentioning the circum- 
stance to me afterwards ; “ why does not somebody pitch him out 
of the bow-window ? ” 

If we were in the secret of Sir Barnes Newcome’s correspondence, 


552 


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and could but peep into that particular letter to his grandmother, 
I dare say we should read that he had seen the Colonel, who was 
very anxious about his darling youth’s suit, but pursuant to Lady 
Kew’s desire, Barnes had stoutly maintained that her Ladyship 
was still in the North, enjoying the genial hospitality of Lord 
Wallsend. That of course he should say nothing to Ethel, except 
with Lady Kew’s full permission : that he wished her a pleasant 
trip to , and was, &c. &c. 

Then, if we could follow him, we might see him reach his 
Belgravian mansion, and fling an angry word to his wife as she 
sits alone in the darkling drawing-room, poring over the embers. 

He will ask her, probably with an oath, why the she is not 

dressed ? and if she always intends to keep her company waiting ] 
An hour hence, each with a smirk, and the lady in smart raiment, 
with flowers in her hair, will be greeting their guests as they arrive. 
Then will come dinner and such conversation as it brings. Then 
at night Sir Barnes will issue forth, cigar in mouth ; to return to 
his own chamber at his own hour ; to breakfast by himself ; to go 
City-wards, money-getting. He will see his children once a fort- 
night, and exchange a dozen sharp words with his wife twice in 
that time. 

More and more sad does the Lady Clara become from day to 
day ; liking more to sit lonely over the fire ; careless about the 
sarcasms of her husband ; the prattle of her children. She cries 
sometimes over the cradle of the young heir. She is aweary, 
aweary. You understand the man to whom her parents sold her 
does not make her happy, though she has been bought with 
diamonds, two carriages, several large footmen, a fine country house 
with delightful gardens and conservatories, and with all this she is 
miserable — is it possible ? 


CHAPTER LIII 


IN WHICH KINSMEN FALL OUT 

N OT the least difficult part of Thomas Newcome’s present 
business was to keep from his son all knowledge of the 
negotiation in which he was engaged on Clive’s behalf. If 
my gentle reader has had sentimental disappointments, he or she 
is aware that the friends who have given him most sympathy under 
these calamities have been persons who have had dismal histories of 
their own at some time of their lives, and I conclude Colonel New- 
come in his early days must have suffered very cruelly in that affair 
of which we have a slight cognisance, or he would not have felt so 
very much anxiety about Clive’s condition. 

A few chapters back and we described the first attack, and 
Clive’s manful cure : then we had to indicate the young gentleman’s 
relapse, and the noisy exclamations of the youth under this second 
outbreak of fever. Calling him back after she had dismissed him, 
and finding pretext after pretext to see him — why did the girl 
encourage him, as she certainly did 1 ? I allow, with Mrs. Grundy 
and most moralists, that Miss Newcome’s conduct in this matter 
was highly reprehensible ; that if she did not intend to marry Clive 
she should have broken with him altogether ; that a virtuous young 
woman of high principle, &c. &c., having once determined to reject 
a suitor, should separate from him utterly then and there — never 
give him again the least chance of a hope, or re-illume the ex- 
tinguished fire in the wretch’s bosom. 

But coquetry, but kindness, but family affection, and a strong, 
very strong partiality for the rejected lover — are these not to be 
taken in account, and to plead as excuses for her behaviour to 
her cousin'? The least unworthy part of her conduct, some critics 
will say, was that desire to see Clive and be well with him : as she 
felt the greatest regard for him, the showing it was not blamable ; 
and every flutter which she made to escape out of the meshes which 
the world had cast about her, was but the natural effort at liberty. 
It was her prudence which was wrong ; and her submission, wherein 
she was most culpable. In the early Church story, do we not read 
how young martyrs constantly had to disobey worldly papas and 


554 


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mammas, who would have had them silent, and not utter their 
dangerous opinions 1 how their parents locked them up, kept them 
on bread and water, whipped and tortured them, in order to enforce 
obedience 1 — nevertheless they would declare the truth : they would 
defy the gods by law established, and deliver themselves up to the 
lions or the tormentors. Are not their Heathen Idols enshrined 
among us still 1 Does not the world worship them, and persecute 
those who refuse to kneel ? Do not many timid souls sacrifice to 
them ; and other bolder spirits rebel, and, with rage at their hearts, 
bend down their stubborn knees at their altars ? See ! I began by 
siding with Mrs. Grundy and the world, and at the next turn of 
the see-saw have lighted down on Ethel’s side, and am disposed to 
think that the very best part of her conduct has been those escapades 
which — which right-minded persons most justly condemn. At least 
that a young beauty should torture a man with alternate liking and 
indifference ; allure, dismiss, and call him back out of banishment ; 
practise arts-to-please upon him, and ignore them when rebuked for 
her coquetry — these are surely occurrences so common in young 
women’s history as to call for no special censure ; and, if on these 
charges Miss Newcome is guilty, is she, of all her sex, alone 
in her criminality ? 

So Ethel and her duenna went away upon their tour of visits to 
mansions so splendid, and among hosts and guests so polite, that 
the present modest historian does not dare to follow them. Suffice 
it to say that Duke This and Earl That were, according to their 
hospitable custom, entertaining a brilliant circle of friends at their 
respective castles, all whose names the Morning Post gave ; and 
among them those of the Dowager Countess of Kew and Miss 
Newcome. 

During her absence Thomas Newcome grimly awaited the result 
of his application to Barnes. That baronet showed his uncle a 
letter, or rather a postscript, from Lady Kew, which had probably 
been dictated by Barnes himself, in which the Dowager said she 
was greatly touched by Colonel Newcome’s noble offer; that, 
though she owned she had very different views for her grand- 
daughter, Miss Newcome’s choice of course lay with herself. Mean- 
while Lady K. and Ethel were engaged in a round of visits to the 
country, and there would be plenty of time to resume this subject 
when they came to London for the season. And, lest dear Ethel’s 
feelings should be needlessly agitated by a discussion of the subject, 
and the Colonel should take a fancy to write to her privately, Lady 
Kew gave orders that all letters from London should be despatched 
under cover to her Ladyship, and carefully examined the contents 
of the packet before Ethel received her share of the correspondence. 


THE NEWCOMES 


555 


To write to her personally on the subject of the marriage, 
Thomas Newcome had determined was not a proper course for him 
to pursue. “ They consider themselves,” says he, “ above us, for- 
sooth, in their rank of life (oh, mercy ! what pigmies we are ! and 
don’t angels weep at the brief authority in which we dress ourselves 
up !), and of course the approaches on our side must be made in 
regular form, and the parents of the young people must act for 
them. Clive is too honourable a man to wish to conduct the affair 
in any other way. He might try the influence of his beaux yeux , 
and run off to Gretna with a girl who had nothing ; but the young 
lady being wealthy, and his relation, sir, we must be on the point 
of honour; and all the Kews in Christendom shan’t have more 
pride than we in this matter.” 

All this time we are keeping Mr. Clive purposely in the back- 
ground. His face is so woebegone that we do not care to bring it 
forward in the family picture. His case is so common that surely 
its lugubrious symptoms need not be described at length. He 
works away fiercely at his pictures, and in spite of himself improves 
in his art. He sent a “ Combat of Cavalry,” and a picture of “ Sir 
Brian the Templar carrying off Rebecca,” to the British Institution 
this year ; both of which pieces were praised in other journals besides 
the Pall Mall Gazette. He did not care for the newspaper praises. 
He was rather surprised when a dealer purchased his “ Sir Brian 
the Templar.” He came and went from our house a melancholy 
swain. He was thankful for Laura’s kindness and pity. J. J.’s 
studio was his principal resort ; and I dare say, as he set up his 
own easel there, and worked by his friend’s side, he bemoaned his 
lot to his sympathising friend. 

Sir Barnes Newcome’s family was absent from London during 
the winter. His mother, and his brothers and sisters, his wife and 
his two children, were gone to Newcome for Christmas. Some six 
weeks after seeing him, Ethel wrote her uncle a kind, merry letter. 
They had been performing private theatricals at the country house 
where she and Lady Kew were staying. “ Captain Crackthorpe made 
an admirable Jeremy Diddler in ‘ Raising the Wind.’ Lord Farin- 
tosh broke down lamentably as Fusbos in 1 Bombastes Furioso.’ ” 
Miss Ethel had distinguished herself in both of these facetious little 
comedies. “I should like Clive to paint me as Miss Plainways,” 
she wrote. “I wore a powdered front, painted my face all over 
wrinkles, imitated old Lady Griffin as well as I could, and looked 
sixty at least.” 

Thomas Newcome wrote an answer to his fair niece’s pleasant 
letter: “Clive,” he said, “would be happy to bargain to paint her, 
and nobody else but her, all the days of his life ; and,” the Colonel 


556 


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was sure, “ would admire her at sixty as much as he did now, when 
she was forty years younger.” But, determined on maintaining his 
appointed line of conduct respecting Miss Newcome, he carried his 
letter to Sir Barnes, and desired him to forward it to his sister. 
Sir Barnes took the note, and promised to despatch it. The com- 
munications between him and his uncle had been very brief and 
cold, since the telling of those little fibs concerning old Lady Kew’s 
visits to London, which the Baronet dismissed from his mind as 
soon as they were spoken, and which the good Colonel never could 
forgive. Barnes asked his uncle to dinner once or twice, but the 
Colonel was engaged. How was Barnes to know the reason of 
the elder’s refusal ? A London man, a banker and a member of 
Parliament, has a thousand things to think of; and no time to 
wonder that friends refuse his invitations to dinner. Barnes con- 
tinued to grin and smile most affectionately when he met the Colonel; 
to press his hand, to congratulate him on the last accounts from 
India, unconscious of the scorn and distrust with which his senior 
mentally regarded him. “ Old boy is doubtful about the young 
cub’s love affair,” the Baronet may have thought. “We’ll ease his 
old mind on that point some time hence.” No doubt Barnes thought 
he was conducting the business very smartly and diplomatically. 

I heard myself news at this period from the gallant Crackthorpe, 
which, being interested in my young friend’s happiness, filled me with 
some dismay. “ Our friend the painter and glazier has been hanker- 
ing about our barracks at Knightsbridge ” (the noble Life Guards 
Green had now pitched their tents in that suburb), “and pumping 
me about la belle cousine. I don’t like to break it to him — I 
don’t, really, now. But it’s all up with his chance, I think. Those 
private theatricals at Fallowfield have done Farintosh’s business. 
He used to rave about the Newcome to me, as we were riding home 
from hunting. He gave Bob Henchman the lie, who told a story 
which Bob got from his man, who had it from Miss Newcome’s 
lady’s-maid, about — about some journey to Brighton, which the 
cousins took.” Here Mr. Crackthorpe grinned most facetiously. 
“ Farintosh swore he’d knock Henchman down ; and vows he will 
be the death of — will murder our friend Clive when he comes to 
town. As for Henchman, he was in a desperate way. He lives on 
the Marquis, you know, and Farintosh’s anger or his marriage will 
be the loss of free quarters, and ever so many good dinners a year 
to him.” I did not deem it necessary to impart Crackthorpe’s story 
to Clive, or explain to him the reason why Lord Farintosh scowled 
most fiercely upon the young painter, and passed him without any 
other sign of recognition one day as Clive and I were walking together 
in Pall Mall. If my Lord wanted a quarrel, young Clive was not a 


THE NEWCOMES 557 

man to balk him, and would have been a very fierce customer to 
deal with, in his actual state of mind. 

A pauper child in London at seven years old knows how to go 
to market, to fetch the beer, to pawn father’s coat, to choose the 
largest fried fish or the nicest ham-bone, to nurse Mary Jane of 
three, — to conduct a hundred operations of trade or housekeeping, 
which a little Belgravian does not perhaps acquire in all the days 
of her life. Poverty and necessity force this precociousness on the 
poor little brat. There are children who are accomplished shop- 
lifters and liars almost as soon as they can toddle and speak. I 
dare say little Princes know the laws of etiquette as regards them- 
selves, and the respect due to their rank at a very early period of 
their royal existence. Every one of us, according to his degree, can 
point to the Princekins of private life who are flattered and 
worshipped, and whose little shoes grown men kiss as soon almost 
as they walk upon ground. 

It is a wonder what human nature will support : and that, con- 
sidering the amount of flattery some people are crammed with from 
their cradles, they do not grow worse and more selfish than they 
are. Our poor little pauper just mentioned is dosed with Daffy’s 
Elixir, and somehow survives the drug. Princekin or Lordkin from 
his earliest days has nurses, dependants, governesses, little friends, 
schoolfellows, schoolmasters, fellow-collegians, college tutors, stewards 
and valets, led-captains of his suite, and women innumerable flatter- 
ing him and doing him honour. The tradesman’s manner, which to 
you and me is decently respectful, becomes straightway frantically 
servile before Princekin. Folks at railway stations whisper to their 
families, “ That’s the Marquis of Farintosh,” and look hard at him 
as he passes. Landlords cry, “This way, my Lord ; this room for 
your Lordship.” They say at public schools Princekin is taught 
the beauties of equality, and thrashed into some kind of subordination. 
Psha ! Toad-eaters in pinafores surround Princekin. Do not respect- 
able people send their children so as to be at the same school with 
him : don’t they follow him to college, and eat his toads through life ? 

And as for women — 0 my dear friends and brethren in this 
vale of tears — did you ever see anything so curious, monstrous, and 
amazing as the way in which women court Princekin when he is 
marriageable, and pursue him with their daughters 1 Who was the 
British nobleman in old old days who brought his three daughters 
to the King of Mercia, that his Majesty might choose one after 
inspection % Mercia was but a petty province, and its king in fact 
a Princekin. Ever since those extremely ancient and venerable 
times the custom exists not only in Mercia, but in all the rest of 


558 


THE NEWCOMES 


the provinces inhabited by the Angles, and before Princekins the 
daughters of our nobles are trotted out 

There was no day of his life which our young acquaintance, the 
Marquis of Farintosh, could remember on which he had not been 
flattered ; and no society which did not pay him court. At a 
.private school he could recollect the master’s wife stroking his 
pretty curls and treating him furtively to goodies ; at college he 
had the tutor simpering and bowing as he swaggered over the grass 
plat ; old men at clubs would make way for him and fawn on him 
— not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless parasites, but most 
respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen them- 
selves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one 
of the institutions of their country, and admired the wisdom of the 
nation that set him to legislate over us. When Lord Farintosh 
walked the streets at night, he felt himself like Haroun Alraschid 
— (that is, he would have felt so had he ever heard of the Arabian 
potentate) — a monarch in disguise affably observing and prome- 
nading the city. And let us be sure there was* a Mesrour in his 
train to knock at the doors for him and run the errands of this 
young Caliph. Of course he met with scores of men in life who 
neither flattered him nor would suffer his airs ; but he did not like 
the company of such, or for the sake of truth to undergo the ordeal of 
being laughed at; he preferred toadies, generally speaking. “I like,” 
says he, “ you know, those fellows who are always saying pleasant 
things, you know, and who would run from here to Hammer- 
smith if I asked ’em — much better than those fellows who are 
always making fun of me, you know.” A man of his station who likes 
flatterers need not shut himself up ; he can get plenty of society. 

As for women, it was his Lordship’s opinion that every daughter 
of Eve was bent on marrying him. A Scotch marquis, an English 
earl, of the best blood in the empire, with a handsome person, and 
a fortune of fifteen thousand a year, how could the poor creatures 
do otherwise than long for him ? He blandly received their caresses ; 
took their coaxing and cajolery as matters of course ; and surveyed 
th} beauties of his time as the Caliph the moonfaces of his harem. 
My Lord intended to marry certainly. He did not care for money, 
nor for rank ; he expected consummate beauty and talent, and some 
day would fling his handkerchief to the possessor of these, and place 
her by his side upon the Farintosh throne. 

At this time there were but two or three young ladies in society 
endowed with the necessary qualifications, or who found favour in 
his eyes. His Lordship hesitated in his selection from these 
beauties. He was not in a hurry, he was not angry at the notion 
that Lady Kew (and Miss Newcome with her) hunted him. What 


THE NEWCOMES 


559 

else should they do but pursue an object so charming 1 Everybody 
hunted him. The other young ladies, whom we need not mention, 
languished after him still more longingly. He had little notes 
from these; presents of purses worked by them, and cigar-cases 
embroidered with his coronet. They sang to him in cosy boudoirs 
— mamma went out of the room, and sister Ann forgot something 
in the drawing-room. They ogled him as they sang. Trembling 
they gave him a little foot to mount them, that they might ride on 
horseback with him. They tripped along by his side from the 
Hall to the pretty country church on Sundays. They warbled 
hymns, sweetly looking at him the while mamma whispered con- 
.fidentially to him “ What an angel Cecilia is ! ” And so forth, and 
so forth — with which chaff our noble bird was by no means to be 
caught. When he had made up his great mind that the time was 
come and the woman, he was ready to give a Marchioness of Farin- 
tosh to the English nation. 

Miss Newcome has been compared ere this to the statue of 
“ Huntress Diana ” at the Louvre, whose haughty figure and beauty 
the young lady indeed somewhat resembled. I was not present 
when Diana and Diana’s grandmother hunted the noble Scottish 
stag of whom we have just been writing; nor care to know how 
many times Lord Farintosh escaped, and how at last he was brought 
to bay and taken by his resolute pursuers. Paris, it appears, was 
the scene of his fall and capture. The news was no doubt well 
known amongst Lord Farintosh’s brother dandies, among exasperated 
matrons and virgins in Mayfair, and in polite society generally, 
before it came to simple Tom Newcome and his son. Not a word 
on the subject had Sir Barnes mentioned to the Colonel : perhaps 
not choosing to speak till the intelligence was authenticated ; per- 
haps not wishing to be the bearer of tidings so painful. 

Though the Colonel may have read in his Pall Mall Gazette 
a paragraph which announced an approaching Marriage in High 
Life, “ between a noble yoiing marquis and an accomplished and 
beautiful young lady, daughter and sister of a Northern baronet,” he 
did not know who were the fashionable persons about to be made 
happy, nor, until he received a letter from an old friend who lived at 
Paris, was the fact conveyed to him. Here is the letter preserved by 
him along with all that he ever received from the same hand : — 

“Rue St. Dominique St. Germain, Paris, 10 F6v. 

“ So behold you of return, my friend ! you quit for ever the 
sword and those arid plains where you have passed so many years 
of your life, separated from those to whom, at the commencement, 


560 


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you held very nearly. Did it not seem once as if two hands never 
could unlock, so closely were they enlaced together ? Ah, mine are 
old and feeble now ; forty years have passed since the time when 
you used to say they were young and fair. How well I remember 
me of every one of those days, though there is a death between me 
and them, and it is as across a grave I review them. Yet another 
parting, and tears and regrets are finished. Tenez , I do not believe 
them when they say there is no meeting for us afterwards, there 
above. To what good to have seen you, friend, if we are to part 
here, and in heaven too? I have not altogether forgotten your 
language, is it not so ? I remember it because it was yours, and 
that of my happy days. I radote like an old woman as I am. 
M. de Florae has known my history from the commencement. May 
I not say that after so many of years I have been faithful to him 
and to all my promises ? When the end comes with its great abso- 
lution, I shall not be sorry. One supports the combats of life, but 
they are long, and one comes from them very wounded ; ah, when 
shall they be over? 

“ You return and I salute you with wishes for parting. How 
much egotism ! I have another project which I please myself to 
arrange. You know how I am arrived to love Clive as my own 
child. I very quick surprised his secret, the poor boy, when he 
was here it is twenty months. He looked so like you as I repeal 
me of you in the old time ! He told me he had no hope of his 
beautiful cousin. I have heard of the fine marriage that one makes 
her. Paul, my son, lias been at the English Ambassade last night 
and has made his congratulations to M. de Farintosh. Paul says 
him handsome, young, not too spiritual, rich, and haughty, like all 
noble Montagnards. 

“ But it is not of M. de Farintosh I write, whose marriage, 
without doubt, has been announced to you. I have a little project, 
very foolish, perhaps. You know Mr. the Duke of Ivry has left 
me guardian of his little daughter Antoinette, whose affreuse mother 
no one sees more. Antoinette is pretty and good and soft, and 
with an affectionate heart. I love her already as my infant. I 
wish to bring her up, and that Clive should marry her. They 
say you are returned very rich. What follies are these I write ! 
In the long evenings of winter, the children escaped it is a 
long time from the maternal nest, a silent old man my only com- 
pany, — I live but of the past ; and play with its souvenirs as 
the detained caress little birds, little flowers, in their prisons. I 
was born for the happiness ; my God ! I have learned it in know- 
ing you. In losing you I have lost it. It is not against the will 
of Heaven I oppose myself. It is man, who makes himself so 


THE NEWCOMES 561 

much of this evil and misery, this slavery, these tears, these crimes, 
perhaps. 

“This marriage of the young Scotch marquis and the fair 
Ethel (I love her in spite of all, and shall see her soon and con- 
gratulate her, for, do you see, I might have stopped this fine 
marriage, and did my best and more than my duty for our poor 
Clive 1) shall make itself in London next spring, I hear. You 
shall assist scarcely at the ceremony ; he, poor boy, shall not care 
to be there ! Bring him to Paris to make the court to my little 
Antoinette : bring him to Paris to his good friend, 

“COMTESSE DE FlORAC. 

“ I read marvels of his works in an English journal, which one 
sends me.” 

Clive was not by when this letter reached his father. Clive was 
in his painting-room, and lest he should meet his son, and in 
order to devise the best means of breaking the news to the lad, 
Thomas Newcome retreated out of doors ; and from the Oriental 
he crossed Oxford Street, and from Oxford Street he stalked over 
the roomy pavements of Gloucester Place, and there he bethought 
him how he had neglected Mrs. Hobson Newcome of late, and the 
interesting family of Bryanstone Square. So he went to leave his 
card at Maria’s door : her daughters, as we have said, are quite 
grown girls. If they have been lectured, and learning, and back- 
boarded, and practising, and using the globes, and laying in a store 
of ’ologies, ever since, what a deal they must know ! Colonel 
Newcome was admitted to see his nieces, and Consummate Virtue, 
their parent. Maria was charmed to see her brother-in-law; she 
greeted him with reproachful tenderness : “ Why, why,” her fine 
eyes seemed to say, “have you so long neglected us 1 ? Do you 
think because I am wise, and gifted, and good, and you are, it 
must be confessed, a poor creature with no education, I am not 
also affable 1 Come, let the prodigal be welcomed by his virtuous 
relatives ; come and lunch with us, Colonel ! ” He sat down 
accordingly to the family tiffin. 

When the meal was over, the mother, who had matter of 
importance to impart to him , besought him to go to the drawing- 
Toom, and there poured out such a eulogy upon her children’s 
qualities as fond mothers know how to utter. They knew this 
and they knew that. They were instructed by the most eminent 
professors : “ That wretched Frenchwoman, whom you may re- 
member here, Mademoiselle Lebrun,” Maria remarked parentheti- 
cally, “ turned out, oh frightfully ! She taught the girls the worst 
accent, it appears. Her father was not a colonel; he was — oh! 

8 2 N 


562 


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never mind ! It is a mercy I got rid of that fiendish woman, and 
before my precious ones knew what she was ! ” And then followed 
details of the perfections of the two girls, with occasional side-shots 
at Lady Ann’s family, just as in the old time. “ Why don’t you 
bring your boy, whom I have always loved as a son, and who 
avoids me? Why does not Clive know his cousins? They are 
very different from others of his kinswomen, who think but of 
the heartless world.” 

“I fear, Maria, there is too much truth in what you say,” 
sighs the Colonel, drumming on a book on the drawing-room table, 
and looking down sees it is a great, large, square, gilt Peerage, 
open at Farintosh, Marquis of. — Fergus Angus Malcolm Mungo 
Roy, Marquis of Farintosh, Earl of Glenlivat, in the peerage of 
Scotland ; also Earl of Rossmont, in that of the United Kingdom. 
Son of Angus Fergus Malcolm, Earl of Glenlivat, and grandson and 
heir of Malcolm Mungo Angus, first Marquis of Farintosh, and 
twenty-fifth Earl, &c. &c. 

“You have heard the news regarding Ethel ? ” remarks Mrs. 
Hobson. 

“ I have just heard,” says the poor Colonel. 

“ I have a letter from Ann this morning,” Maria continues. 
“ They are of course delighted with the match. Lord Farintosh 
is wealthy, handsome ; has been a little wild, I hear ; is not such 
a husband as I would choose for my darlings, but poor Brian’s 
family have been educated to love the world ; and Ethel no doubt 
is flattered by the prospects before her. I have heard that some 
one else was a little epris in that quarter. How does Clive bear 
the news, my dear Colonel ? ” 

“ He has long expected it,” says the Colonel, rising : “ and I 
left him very cheerful at breakfast this morning.” 

“Send him to see us, the naughty boy,” cries Maria. “ We 
don’t change; we remember old times; to us he will ever be 
welcome ! ” And with this confirmation of Madame de Florae’s 
news, Thomas Newcome walked sadly homewards. 

And now Thomas Newcome had to break the news to his son ; 
who received the shot in such a way as caused his friends and 
confidants to admire his high spirit. He said lie had long been 
expecting some such announcement : it was many months since 
Ethel had prepared him for it. Under her peculiar circumstances 
he did not see how she could act otherwise than she had done. 
And he narrated to the Colonel the substance of the conversation 
which the two young people had had together several months 
before, in Madame de Florae’s garden. 

Clive’s father did not tell his son of his own bootless negotiation 


THE NEWCOMES 


563 


with Barnes Newcome. There w T as no need to recall that now ; 
but the Colonel’s wrath against his nephew exploded in conversation 
with me, who was the confidant of father and son in this business. 
Ever since that luckless day when Barnes thought proper to — to 
give a wrong address for Lady Kew, Thomas Newcome’s anger had 
been growing. He smothered it yet for a while, sent a letter to 
Lady Ann Newcome briefly congratulating her on the choice which 
he had heard Miss Newcome had made ; and in acknowledgment 
of Madame de Florae’s more sentimental epistle he wrote a reply 
which has not been preserved, but in which he bade her rebuke 
Miss Newcome for not having answered him when he wrote to her, 
and not having acquainted her old uncle with her projected union. 

To this message Ethel wrote back a brief hurried reply ; it 
said : — 

V 

“ I saw Madame de Florae last night at her daughter’s reception, 
and she gave me my dear uncle’s messages. Yes, the news is true 
which you have heard from Madame de Florae, and in Bryanstone 
Square. I did not like to write it to you, because I know one 
whom I regard as a brother (and a great great deal better), and to 
whom I know it will give pain. He knows that I have done my 
duty, and why I have acted as I have done. God bless him and 
his dear father. 

“ What is this about a letter which I never answered h Grand- 
mamma knows nothing about a letter. Mamma has enclosed to me 
that which you wrote to her, but there has been no letter from 
T. N. to his sincere and affectionate E. N. 

“Rue de Rivoli. Friday 

This was too much, and the cup of Thomas Newcome’s wrath 
overflowed. Barnes had lied about Ethel’s visit to London ; 
Barnes had lied in saying that he delivered the message with which 
his uncle charged him ; Barnes had lied about the letter which he 
had received, and never sent. With these accusations firmly proven 
in his mind against his nephew, the Colonel went down to confront 
that sinner. 

Wherever he should find Barnes, Thomas Newcome was deter- 
mined to tell him his mind. Should they meet on the steps of a 
church, on the flags of ’Change, or in the newspaper-room at Bays’s, 
at evening-paper time, when men most do congregate, Thomas the 
Colonel was determined upon exposing and chastising his father’s 
grandson. With Ethel’s letter in his pocket, he took his way into 
the City, penetrated into the unsuspecting back-parlour of Hobsons’ 
bank, and was disappointed at first at only finding his half-brother 


564 


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Hobson there engaged over his newspaper. The Colonel signified 
his wish to see Sir Barnes Newcome. “ Sir Barnes was not come 
in yet. You’ve heard about the marriage % ” says Hobson. “ Great 
news for the Barneses, ain’t it 1 The head of the house is as proud 
as a peacock about it — said he was going out to Samuels the 
diamond merchant’s ; going to make his sister some uncommon fine 
present. Jolly to be uncle to a marquis, ain’t it, Colonel 'l I’ll 
have nothing under a duke for my girls. I say, I know whose nose 
is out of joint. But young fellows get over these things, and Clive 
won’t die this time, I dare say.” 

While Hobson Newcome made these satiric and facetious re- 
marks, his half-brother paced up and down the glass parlour, 
scowling over the panes into the bank where the busy young clerks 
sat before their ledgers. At last he gave an “Ah!” as of satis- 
faction. Indeed he had seen Sir Barnes Newcome enter into the 
bank. 

The Baronet stopped and spoke with a clerk, and presently 
entered, followed by that young gentleman, into his private parlour. 
Barnes tried to grin when he saw his uncle, and held out his hand 
to greet the Colonel, but the Colonel put both his behind his back : 
— that which carried his faithful bamboo cane shook nervously. 
Barnes was aware that the Colonel had the news. “ I was going 
to — to write to you this morning, with — with some intelligence 
that I am — very — very sorry to give.” 

“ This young gentleman is one of your clerks ? ” asked Thomas 
Newcome blandly. 

“Yes; Mr. Boltby, w r ho has your private account. This is 
Colonel Newcome, Mr. Boltby,” says Sir Barnes, in some wonder. 

“Mr. Boltby, brother Hobson, you heard what Sir Barnes 
Newcome said just now respecting certain intelligence, which he 
grieved to give me 1 ” 

At this the three other gentlemen respectively wore looks of 
amazement. 

“Allow me to say in your presence, that I don’t believe one 
single word Sir Barnes Newcome says, when he tells me that he is 
very sorry for some intelligence he has to communicate. He lies, 
Mr. Boltby ; he is very glad. I made up my mind that in what- 
soever company I met him, and on the very first day I found him 
— hold your tongue, sir ; you shall speak afterwards and tell more 
lies when I have done — I made up my mind, I say, that on the 
very first occasion I would tell Sir Barnes Newcome that he was 
a liar and a cheat. He takes charge of letters and keeps them back. 
Did you break the seal, sir 1 ? There was nothing to steal in my 
letter to Miss Newcome. He tells me people are out of town whom 






THE COLONEL TELLS SIR BARNES A BIT OF HIS MIND 



. 












































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565 


he goes to see in the next street, after leaving my table, and whom 
I see myself half-an-hour after he lies to me about their absence.” 

“D — n you, go out, and don’t stand staring there, you booby!” 
screams out Sir Barnes to the clerk. “ Stop, Boltby. Colonel 
Newcome, unless you leave this room I shall — I shall ” 

“You shall call a policeman. Send for the gentleman, and I 
will tell the Lord Mayor what I think of Sir Barnes Newcome, 
Baronet. Mr. Boltby, shall we have the constable in ? ” 

“ Sir, you are an old man, and my father’s brother, or you know 
very well I would ” 

“You would what, sir? Upon my word, Barnes Newcome” 
(here the Colonel’s two hands and the bamboo cane came from the 
rear and formed in front), “ but that you are my father’s grandson, 
after a menace like that, I would take you out and cane you in the 
presence of your clerks. I repeat, sir, that I consider you guilty of 
treachery, falsehood, and knavery. And if ever I see you at Bays’s 
Club, I will make the same statement to your acquaintance at the 
west end of the town. A man of your baseness ought to be known, 
sir ; and it shall be my business to make men of honour aware of 
your character. Mr. Boltby, will you have the kindness to make 
out my account? Sir Barnes Newcome, for fear of consequences 
that I should deplore, I recommend you to keep a wide berth of me, 
sir.” And the Colonel twirled his mustachios, and waved his cane 
in an ominous manner, and Barnes started back spontaneously out 
of its dangerous circle. 

What Mr. Boltby’s sentiments may have been regarding this 
extraordinary scene in which his principal cut so sorry a figure ; — 
whether he narrated the conversation to other gentlemen connected 
-with the establishment of Hobson Brothers or prudently kept it to 
himself, I cannot say, having no means of pursuing Mr. B.’s subse- 
quent career. He speedily quitted his desk at Hobson Brothers ; 
and let us presume that Barnes thought Mr. B. had told all the 
other clerks of the avuncular quarrel. That conviction will make 
us imagine Barnes still more comfortable. Hobson Newcome no 
doubt was rejoiced at Barnes’s discomfiture ; he had been insolent 
and domineering beyond measure of late to his vulgar good-natured 
uncle, whereas after the above interview with the Colonel he became 
very humble and quiet in his demeanour, and for a long long time 
never said a rude word. Nay, I fear Hobson must have carried an 
account of the transaction to Mrs. Hobson and the circle in Bryan- 
stone Square; for Sam Newcome, now entered at Cambridge, called 
the Baronet “ Barnes ” quite familiarly ; asked after Clara and 
Ethel ; and requested a small loan of Barnes. 

Of course the story did not get wind at Bays’s ; of course Tom 


566 


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Eaves did not know all about it, and say that Sir Barnes had been 
beaten black and blue. Having been treated very ill by the com- 
mittee in a complaint which he made about the club cookery, Sir 
Barnes Newcome never came to Bays’s, and at the end of the year 
took off his name from the lists of the club. 

Sir Barnes, though a little taken aback in the morning, and not 
ready with an impromptu reply to the Colonel and his cane, could 
not allow the occurrence to pass without a protest ; and indited a 
letter which Thomas Newcome kept along with some others pre- 
viously quoted by the compiler of the present memoirs. It is as 
follows : — 

“Colonel Newcome, C.B. Private. Belgrave St., Feb. 15, 18—. 

“ Sir, — The incredible insolence and violence of your behaviour 
to-day (inspired by whatever causes or mistakes of your own) can- 
not be passed without some comment on my part. I laid before a 
friend of your own profession a statement of the words which you 
applied to me in the presence of my partner and one of my clerks 
this morning ; and my adviser is of opinion that, considering the 
relationship unhappily subsisting between us, I can take no notice 
of insults for which you knew when you uttered them I could not 
call you to account.” 

“ There is some truth in that,” said the Colonel. “ He couldn’t 
fight, you know; but then he was such a liar I could not help 
speaking my mind.” 

“I gathered from the brutal language which you thought fit 
to employ towards a disarmed man the ground of one of your 
monstrous accusations against me, that I deceived you in stating 
that my relative, Lady Kew, was in the country, when in fact she 
was at her house in London. 

“ To this absurd charge I at once plead guilty. The venerable 
lady in question was passing through London, where she desired to 
be free from intrusion. At her Ladyship’s wish I stated that she 
was out of town ; and would, under the same circumstances, un- 
hesitatingly make the same statement. Your slight acquaintance 
with the person in question did not warrant that you should force 
yourself on her privacy, as you would doubtless know were you 
more familiar with the customs of the society in which she moves. 

“ I declare upon my honour as a gentleman, that I gave her the 
message which I promised to deliver from you, and also that I 
transmitted a letter with which you entrusted me ; and repel with 
scorn and indignation the charges which you were pleased to bring 


THE NEWCOMES 567 

against me, as I treat with contempt the language and the threats 
which you thought fit to employ. 

“Our books show the amount of £x, #s. #d. to your credit, 
which you will be good enough to withdraw at your earliest con- 
venience ; as of course all intercourse must cease henceforth between 
you and — Yours, &c. B. Newcome Newcome.” 

“ I think, sir, he doesn’t make out a bad case,” Mr. Pendennis 
remarked to the Colonel, who showed him this majestic letter. 

“ It would be a good case if I believed a single word of it, 
Arthur,” replied my friend, placidly twirling the old grey mustachio. 
“ If you were to say so and so, and say that I had brought false 
charges against you, I should cry mea culpa and apologise with all 
my heart. But as I have a perfect conviction that every word this 
fellow says is a lie, what is the use of arguing any more about the 
matter] I would not believe him if he brought twenty other liars 
as witnesses, and if he lied till he w r as black in the face. Give me 
the walnuts. I wonder who Sir Barnes’s military friend was.” 

Barnes’s military friend was our gallant acquaintance, General 
Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B., who a short while afterwards talked 
over the quarrel with the Colonel, and manfully told him that (in 
Sir Thomas’s opinion) he was wrong. “ The little beggar behaved 
very well, I thought, in the first business. You bullied him so, 
and in the front of his regiment, too, that it was almost past bear- 
ing ; and when he deplored, with tears in his eyes almost, the little 
humbug ! that his relationship prevented him calling you out, ecod, 
I believed him ! It was in the second affair that poor little Barney 
showed he was a cocktail.” 

“What second affair 1 ?” asked Thomas Newcome. 

“ Don’t you know ! He ! he ! this is famous ! ” cries Sir 
Thomas. “Why, sir, two days after your business, he comes to 
me with another letter and a face as long as my mare’s, by Jove. 
And that letter, Newcome, was from your young un. Stop, here 
it is ! ” and from his padded bosom General Sir Thomas de Boots 
drew a pocket-book, and from the pocket-book a copy of a letter, 
inscribed, “ Clive Newcome, Esq., to Sir B. N. Newcome.” 

“ There’s no mistake about your fellow, Colonel. No, him ! ” 

and the man of war fired a volley of oaths as a salute to Clive. 

And the Colonel, on horseback, riding by the other cavalry 
officer’s side, read as follows : — 

“George Street, Hanover Square, February 16. 

“ Sir, — Colonel Newcome this morning showed me a letter bear 
ing your signature, in which you state — 1. That Colonel Newcome 


568 


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lias uttered calumnious and insolent charges against you. 2. That 
Colonel Newcome so spoke, knowing that you could take no notice 
of his charges of falsehood and treachery, on account of the relation- 
ship subsisting between you. 

“Your statements would evidently imply that Colonel New- 
come has been guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct, and of cowardice 
towards you. 

“ As there can be no reason why we should not meet in any 
manner that you desire, I here beg leave to state, on my own part, 
that I fully coincide with Colonel Newcome in his opinion that you 
have been guilty of falsehood and treachery, and that the charge of 
cowardice which you dare to make against a gentleman of his tried 
honour and courage, is another wilful and cowardly falsehood on 
your part. 

“ And I hope you will refer the bearer of this note, my friend 
Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, to the military 
gentleman whom you consulted in respect to the just charges of 
Colonel Newcome. Waiting a prompt reply, believe me, sir, your 
obedient servant, Clive Newcome. 

"Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., M.P., &c.” 

“ What a blunderhead I am!” cries the Colonel, with delight 
on his countenance, spite of his professed repentance. “ It never 
once entered my head that the youngster would take any part in 
the affair. I showed him his cousin’s letter casually just to amuse 
him, I think, for he has been deuced low lately, about — about a 
young man’s scrape that he has got into. And he must have gone 
off and despatched his challenge straightway. I recollect he ap- 
peared uncommonly brisk at breakfast the next morning. And so 
you say, General, the Baronet did not like the poulet ? ” 

“ By no means ; never saw a fellow show such a confounded 
white feather. At first I congratulated him, thinking your boy’s 
offer must please him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our 
time to have a shot. Dammy ! but I was mistaken in my man. He 
entered into some confounded long-winded story about a marriage you 
wanted to make with that infernal pretty sister of his, who is going 
to marry young Farintosh, and how you were in a rage because the 
scheme fell to the ground, and how a family duel might occasion 
unpleasantness to Miss Newcome; though I showed him how this 
could be most easily avoided, and that the lady’s name need never 
appear in the transaction. ‘ Confound it, Sir Barnes,’ says I, ‘ I 
recollect this boy, when he was a youngster, throwing a glass of 
wine in your face ! We’ll put it upon that, and say it’s an old 


THE NEWCOMES 569 

feud between you.’ He turned quite pale, and he said your fellow 
had apologised for the glass of wine.” 

“Yes,” said the Colonel sadly, “my boy apologised for the glass 
of wine. It is curious how we have disliked that Barnes ever since 
we set eyes on him.” 

“Well, Newcome,” Sir Thomas resumed, as his mettled charger 
suddenly jumped and curveted, displaying the padded warrior’s 
cavalry-seat to perfection. “ Quiet, old lady ! — easy, my dear ! 
Well, sir, when I found the little beggar turning tail in this way, 
I said to him, ‘ Dash me, sir, if you don’t want me, why the dash 
do you send for me, dash me 1 ? Yesterday you talked as if you 
would bite the Colonel’s head off, and to-day, when his son offers 
you every accommodation, by dash, sir, you’re afraid to meet him. 
It’s my belief you had better send for a policeman. A 22 is your 
man, Sir Barnes Newcome.’ And with that I turned on my heel and 
left him. And the fellow went off to Newcome that very night.” 

“A poor devil can’t command courage, General,” said the 
Colonel, quite peaceably, “ any more than he can make himself six 
feet high.” 

“ Then why the dash did the beggar send for me ? ” called out 
General Sir Thomas de Boots, in a loud and resolute voice; and 
presently the two officers parted company. 

When the Colonel reached home, Mr. Warrington and Mr. 
Pendennis happened to be on a visit to Clive, and all three were in 
the young fellow’s painting-room. We knew our lad was unhappy, 
and did our little best to amuse and console him. The Colonel 
came in. It was in the dark February days : we had lighted gas 
in the studio. Clive had made a sketch from some favourite verses 
of mine and George’s : those charming lines of Scott’s : — 

“ He turned his charger as he spake, 

Beside the river shore ; 

He gave his bridle-rein a shake, 

With adieu for evermore, 

My dear ! 

Adieu for evermore ! ” 

Thomas Newcome held up a finger at Warrington, and he came 
up to the picture and looked at it ; and George and I trolled out 

" Adieu for evermore, 

My dear ! 

/Adieu for evermore ! ” 

From the picture the brave old Colonel turned to the painter, 
regarding his son with a look of beautiful inexpressible affection. 


570 


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And he laid his hand on his son’s shoulder, and smiled, and stroked 
Clive’s yellow mustachio. 

“ And — and did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote 
him 1 ” he said slowly. 

Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took 
both his father’s hands. “ My dear dear old father ! ” says he, 
“ what a — what an — old — trump you are ! ” My eyes were so dim 
I could hardly see the two men as they embraced. 


CHAPTER LIV 


HAS A TRAGICAL ENDING 


LIVE presently answered the question which his father put 



to him in the last chapter, by producing from the ledge of 


v — ^ his easel a crumpled paper, full of cavendish now, but on 
which was written Sir Barnes Newcome’s reply to his cousin’s 
polite invitation. 

Sir Barnes Newcome wrote, “that he thought a reference to a 
friend was quite unnecessary, in the most disagreeable and painful 
dispute in which Mr. Clive desired to interfere as a principal ; that 
the reasons which prevented Sir Barnes from taking notice of Colonel 
Newcome’s shameful and ungentlemanlike conduct applied equally, 
as Mr. Clive Newcome very well knew, to himself ; that if further 
insult was offered, or outrage attempted, Sir Barnes should resort to 
the police for protection ; that he was about to quit London, and 
certainly should not delay his departure on account of Mr. Clive 
Newcome’s monstrous proceedings; and that he desired to take 
leave of an odious subject, as of an individual whom he had striven 
to treat with kindness, but from whom, from youth upwards, Sir 
Barnes Newcome had received nothing but insolence, enmity, and 


ill-will.” 


“He is an ill man to offend,” remarked Mr. Pendennis. “I 
don’t think he has ever forgiven that claret, Clive.” 

“ Pooh ! the feud dates from long before that,” said Clive ; 
“ Barnes wanted to lick me when I was a boy, and I declined : in 
fact, I think he had rather the worst of it ; but then I operated 
freely on his shins, and that wasn’t fair in war, you know.” 

“ Heaven forgive me ! ” cries the Colonel ; “ I have always 
felt the fellow was my enemy : and my mind is relieved now war 
is declared. It has been a kind of hypocrisy with me to shake 
his hand and eat his dinner. When I trusted him it was against 
my better instinct ; and I have been struggling against it these ten 
years, thinking it was a wicked prejudice and ought to be overcome.” 

“ Why should we overcome such instincts 1 ” asks Mr. 
Warrington. “ Why shouldn’t we hate what is hateful in people, 
and scorn what is mean? From what friend Pen has described 


572 


THE NEW COMES 


to me, and from some other accounts which have come to my 
ears, your respectable nephew is about as loathsome a little villain 
as crawls on the earth. Good seems to be out of his sphere, and 
away from his contemplation. He ill-treats every one he comes 
near; or, if gentle to them, it is that they may serve some base 
purpose. Since my attention has been drawn to the creature, I 
have been contemplating his ways with wonder and curiosity. 
How much superior Nature’s rogues are, Pen, to the villains you 
novelists put into your books ! This man goes about his life 
business with a natural propensity to darkness and evil — as a bug 
crawls, and stings, and stinks. I don’t suppose the fellow feels 
any more remorse than a cat that runs away with a mutton-chop. 
I recognise the Evil Spirit, sir, and do honour to Ahrimanes, in 
taking off my hat to this young man. He seduced a poor girl 
in his father’s country town — is it not natural ? deserted her and 
her children — don’t you recognise the beasts married for rank — 
could you expect otherwise from him ? invites my Lord Highgate 
to his house in consideration of his balance at the bank. — Sir, unless 
somebody’s heel shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to 
which this aspiring vermin mayn’t crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes 
Newcome prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an 
immense capitalist, and an exalted Peer of this realm. He will have 
a marble monument, and a pathetic funeral sermon. There is a 
divine in your family, Clive, that shall preach it. I will weep 
respectful tears over the grave of Baron Newcome, Viscount New- 
come, Earl Newcome ; and the children whom he has deserted, and 
who, in the course of time, will be sent by a grateful nation to New 
South Wales, will proudly say to their brother convicts, “Yes, the 
Earl was our honoured father ! ” 

“I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington,” 
says the Colonel, shaking his head. “ I never heard the story 
about the deserted children.” 

“ How should you, 0 you guileless man ! ” crie3 Warrington. 
“ I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much ; but this 
tale I had from Sir Barnes Newcome’s own county. Mr. Batters 
of the Newcome Independent is my esteemed client. I write 
leading articles for his newspaper, and when he was in town last 
spring he favoured me with the anecdote ; and proposed to amuse 
the Member for Newcome by publishing it in his journal. This 
kind of writing is not much in my line : and, out of respect to you 
and your young one, I believe, I strove with Mr. Batters, and 
entreated him and prevailed with him not to publish the story. 
This is how I came to know it.” 

I sat with the Colonel in the evening, when he commented on 


THE NEWCOMES 


573 


Warrington’s story and Sir Barnes’s adventures in his simple way. 
He said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after 
the dispute, reiterating Barnes’s defence of his conduct ; and profess- 
ing on his own part nothing but good-will towards his brother. 
“ Between ourselves the young baronet carries matters with rather 
a high hand sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a 
little dressing. But you were too hard upon him, Colonel — really 
you were.” “ Had I known the child-deserting story I would have 
given it harder still, sir,” says Thomas Newcome, twirling his 
mustachios : “ but my brother had nothing to do with the quarrel, 
and very rightly did not wish to engage in it. He has an eye to 
business has Master Hobson, too,” my friend continued: “for he 
brought me a cheque for my private account, which of course, he 
said, could not remain after my quarrel with Barnes. But the 
Indian bank account, which is pretty large, he supposed need not 
be taken away? and indeed why should it? So that, which is 
little business of mine, remains where it was ; and brother Hobson 
and I remain perfectly good friends. 

“ I think Clive is much better since he has been quite put out 
of his suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and 
good nature about the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding 
it : and depend on it lias too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. 
But I know he is a good deal cut up, though he says nothing ; and 
he agreed willingly enough to take a little journey, Arthur, and be 
out of the way when this business takes place. We shall go to 
Paris : I don’t know where else besides. These misfortunes do 
good in one way, hard as they are to bear : they unite people who 
love each other. It seems to me my boy has been nearer to me, 
and likes his old father better than he has done of late.” And very 
soon after this talk our friends departed. 

The Bulgarian Minister having been recalled, and Lady Ann 
Newcome’s house in Park Lane being' vacant, her Ladyship and her 
family came to occupy the mansion for this eventful season, and sat 
once more in the dismal dining-room under the picture of the defunct 
Sir Brian. A little of the splendour and hospitality of old days 
was revived in the house ; entertainments were given by Lady Ann ; 
and amongst other festivities, a fine ball took place, when pretty 
Miss Alice, Miss Ethel’s younger sister, made her first appearance 
in the world, to which she was afterwards to be presented by the 
Marchioness of Farintosh. All the little sisters were charmed, no 
doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to become a beautiful Mar- 
chioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one after another, 
would introduce them severally to amiable young earls, dukes, and 
marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets 


574 


THE NEWCOMES 


and diamonds of tlieir own right. At Lady Ann’s ball I saw 
my acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next 
October, and about to leave Rugby, where he was at the head of 
the school, looking very dismal as Miss Alice whirled round the 
room dancing in Viscount Bustington’s arms; — Miss Alice, with 
whose mamma he used to take tea at Rugby, and for whose pretty 
sake Mumford did Alfred Newcome’s verses for him and let him off 
his thrashings. Poor Mumford ! he dismally went about under the 
protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy — not one soul did 
he know in that rattling London ballroom ; his young face was 
as white as the large white tie, donned two hours since at the 
“ Tavistock ” with such nervousness and beating of heart ! 

With these lads, and decorated with a tie equally splendid, 
moved about young Sam Newcome, who was shirking from his 
sister and his mamma. Mrs. Hobson had actually assumed clean 
gloves for this festive occasion. Sam stared at all the “Nobs”; 
and insisted on being introduced to “ Far in tosh,” and congratulated 
his Lordship with much graceful ease ; and then pushed about the 
rooms perseveringly hanging on to Alfred’s jacket. “ I say, I wish 
you wouldn’t call me Al’,” I heard Mr. Alfred say to his cousin. 
Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim acquaintance. He was 
good enough to say he thought Farintosh seemed devilish haughty. 
Even my wife could not help saying that Mr. Sam was an odious 
little creature. 

So it was for young Alfred, and his brothers and sisters, who 
would want help and protection in the world, that Ethel was about 
to give up her independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow 
her life on yonder young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl 
devoting herself to her family, her sacrifice gave her a melancholy 
interest in our eyes. My wife and I watched her, grave and beauti- 
ful, — moving through the rooms, receiving and returning a hundred 
greetings, bending to compliments, talking with this friend and that, 
with my Lord’s lordly relations, with himself, to whom she listened 
deferentially; faintly smiling as he spoke now and again, — doing 
the honours of her mother’s house. Lady after lady of his Lord- 
ship’s clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl and her pleased 
mother. Old Lady Kew was radiant (if one can call radiance the 
glances of those darkling old eyes). She sat in a little room apart, 
and thither people went to pay their court to her. Unwittingly I 
came in on this levee with my wife on my arm : Lady Kew scowled 
at me over her crutch, but without a sign of recognition. “ What 
an awful countenance that old woman has ! ” Laura whispered as 
we retreated out of that gloomy presence. 

. And Doubt (as its wont is) whispered too a question in my ear, 


THE NEWCOMES 


575 


“Is it for her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing 
herself? Is it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine 
houses?” “When two motives may actuate a friend, we surely 
may try* and believe in the good one,” says Laura. “ But, but I 
am glad Clive does not marry her — poor fellow — he would not have 
been happy with her. She belongs to this great world : she has 
spent all her life in it : Clive would have entered into it very likely 
in her train ; and you know, sir, it is not good that we should be 
our husbands’ superiors,” adds Mrs. Laura, with a curtsey. 

She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the 
rooms, and in fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed 
out, we saw Sir Barnes Newcome, eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, 
and in the fondest conversation with his sister and Lord Farintosh. 
By Sir Barnes presently brushed Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas 
de Boots, K.C.B., who, when he saw on whose foot he had trodden, 
grunted out, “ Hm, beg your pardon ! ” and turning his back on 
Barnes, forthwith began complimenting Ethel and the Marquis. 
“ Served with your Lordship’s father in Spain ; glad to make your 
Lordship’s acquaintance,” says Sir Thomas. Ethel bows to us 
as we pass out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir Thomas’s 
conversation. 

In the cloak-room sits Lady Clara Newcome, with a gentleman 
bending over her, just in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth’s 
“ Marriage k la Mode ” as the counsellor talks to her. Lady Clara 
starts up as a crowd of blushes come into her wan face, and tries 
to smile, and rises to greet my wife, and says something about its 
being so dreadfully hot in the upper rooms, and so very tedious 
waiting for the carriages. The gentleman advances towards me 
with a military stride, and says, “How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? 
How’s our young friend the painter?” I answer Lord Highgate 
civilly enough, whereas my wife will scarce speak a word in reply 
to Lady Clara Newcome. 

Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined alto- 
gether to attend. Sit Barnes published a series of quite splendid 
entertainments on the happy occasion of his sister’s betrothal. We 
read the names of all the clan Farintosh in the Morning Post, 
as attending these banquets. Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in 
Bryanstone Square, gave also signs of rejoicing at their niece’s 
marriage. They had a grand banquet, followed by a tea, to which 
latter amusement the present biographer was invited. Lady Ann, 
and Lady Kew and her granddaughter, and the Baronet and his wife, 
and my Lord Highgate and Sir Thomas de Boots attended the 
dinner; but it was rather a damp entertainment. “Farintosh, 
whispers Sam Newcome, “ sent word just before dinner that he had 


57 6 


THE NEWCOMES 


a sore throat, and Barnes was as sulky as possible. Sir Thomas 
wouldn’t speak to him, and the Dowager wouldn’t speak to Lord High- 
gate. Scarcely anything was drunk,” concluded Mr. Sam, with a slight 
hiccup. “I say, Pendennis, how sold Clive will be!” And the ami- 
able youth went off to commune with others of his parents’ guests. 

Thus the Newcomes entertained the Farintoshes, and the 
Farintoshes entertained the Newcomes. And the Dowager Coun- 
tess of Kew went from assembly to assembly every evening, and 
to jewellers and upholsterers, and dressmakers every morning ; and 
Lord Farintosh seemed to grow more and more attentive as the 
happy day approached, and he gave away all his cigars to his brother 
Rob; and his sisters were delighted with Ethel, and constantly 
in her company, and his mother was pleased with her, and thought 
a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good wife for her 
son ; and select crowds flocked to see the service of plate at Handy- 
man’s, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady ; and 
Smee, R.A., painted her portrait, as a souvenir for mamma when 
Miss Newcome should be Miss Newcome no more; and Lady Kew 
made a will, leaving all she could leave to her beloved granddaughter 
Ethel, daughter of the late Sir Brian Newcome, Baronet ; and Lord 
Kew wrote an affectionate letter to his cousin, congratulating her, and 
wishing her happiness with all his heart ; and I was glancing over 
the Times newspaper at breakfast one morning, when I laid it down 
with an exclamation which caused my wife to start with surprise. 

“ What is it % ” cries Laura, and I read as follows : — 

“ ‘Death of the Countess Dowager of Kew. — We regret to 
have to announce the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her 
Ladyship, who had been at several parties of the nobility the night 
before last, seemingly in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she 
was waiting for her carriage, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave’s 
assembly. Immediate medical assistance was procured, and her 
Ladyship was carried to her own house, in Queen Street, Mayfair. 
But she never rallied, or, -we believe, spoke after the first fatal 
seizure, and sank at eleven o’clock last evening. The deceased, 
Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of Frederick, first Earl of Kew, was 
daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt, and sister of the late and aunt 
of the present Marquis of Steyne. The present Earl of Kew is her 
Ladyship’s grandson, his Lordship’s father. Lord Walham, having 
died before his own father, the first earl. Many noble families are 
placed in mourning by this sad event. Society has to deplore the 
death of a lady who has been its ornament for more than half a 
century, and who was known, we may say, throughout Europe for 
her remarkable sense, extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.’ ” 


CHAPTER LV 

BARNES’S SKELETON CLOSET 


T HE demise of Lady Kew of course put a stop for a while 
to the matrimonial projects so interesting to the house of 
Newcome. Hymen blew his torch out, put it into the cup- 
board for use on a future day, and exchanged his garish saffron- 
coloured robe for decent temporary mourning. Charles Honeyman 
improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesea’s chapel hard by; and 
“ Death at the Festival ” was one of his most thrilling sermons ; 
reprinted at the request of some of the congregation. There were 
those of his flock, especially a pair whose quarter of the fold was 
the organ-loft, who were always charmed with the piping of that 
melodious pastor. 

Shall we too, while the coffin yet rests on the outer earth’s 
surface, enter the chapel whither these void remains of our dear 
sister departed are borne by the smug undertaker’s gentlemen, and 
pronounce an elegy over that bedizened box of corruption ? When 
the young are stricken down, and their roses nipped in an hour by 
the destroying blight, even the stranger can sympathise who counts 
the scant years on the gravestone, or reads the notice in the news- 
paper corner. The contrast forces itself on you. A fair young 
creature, bright and blooming yesterday, distributing smiles, levying 
homage, inspiring desire, conscious of her power to charm, and gay 
with the natural enjoyment of her conquests — who in his walk 
through the world has not looked on many such a one ; and, at the 
notion of her sudden call away from beauty, triumph, pleasure ; her 
helpless outcries during her short pain ; her vain pleas for a little 
respite; her sentence, and its execution, — has not felt a shock of 
pity 1 When the days of a long life come to its close, and a white 
head sinks to rise no more, we bow our owm with respect as the 
mourning train passes, and salute the heraldry and devices of 
yonder pomp, as symbols of age, wisdom, deserved respect, and 
merited honour; long experience of suffering and action. The 
wealth he may have achieved is the harvest which he sowed ; the 
titles on his hearse, fruits of the field he bravely and laboriously 
wrought in. But to live to fourscore years, and be found dancing 
8 2 o 


578 


THE NEWCOMES 


among the idle virgins ! to have had near a century of allotted time, 
and then be called away from the giddy notes of a Mayfair fiddle ! 
To have to yield your roses too, and then drop out of the bony 
clutch of your old fingers a wreath that came from a Parisian 
bandbox ! One fancies around some graves unseen troops of 
mourners waiting; many and many a poor pensioner trooping to 
the place ; many weeping charities ; many kind actions ; many dear 
friends beloved and deplored, rising up at the toll of that bell to 
follow the honoured hearse ; dead parents waiting above, and 
calling, “ Come, daughter ! ” lost children, Heaven’s foundlings, 
hovering round like cherubim, and whispering, “ Welcome, mother ! ” 
Here is one who reposes after a long feast where no love has been ; 
after girlhood without kindly maternal nurture ; marriage without 
affection ; matronhood without its precious griefs and joys ; after 
fourscore years of lonely vanity. Let us take off our hats to that 
procession too as it passes, admiring the different lots awarded to 
the children of men, and the various usages to which Heaven puts 
its creatures. 

Leave we yonder velvet-palled box, spangled with fantastic 
heraldry, and containing within the aged slough and envelope of 
a soul gone to render its account. Look rather at the living 
audience standing round the shell : — the deep grief on Barnes 
Newcome’s fine countenance; the sadness depicted in the face of 
the Most Noble the Marquis of Farintosh ; the sympathy of her 
Ladyship’s medical man (who came in the third mourning carriage) ; 
better than these, the awe, and reverence, and emotion exhibited 
in the kind face of one of the witnesses of this scene, as he listens 
to those words which the priest rehearses over our dead. What 
magnificent words ! what a burning faith ; what a glorious triumph ; 
what an heroic life, death, hope, they record ! They are read over 
all of us alike ; as the sun shines on just and unjust. We have all 
of us heard them ; and I have fancied, for my part, that they fell 
and smote like the sods on the coffin. 

The ceremony over, the undertaker’s gentlemen clamber on the 
roof of the vacant hearse, into which palls, tressels, trays of feathers 
are inserted, and the horses break out into a trot, and the empty 
carriages, expressing the deep grief of the deceased lady’s friends, 
depart homeward. It is remarked that Lord Kew hardly has any 
communication with his cousin, Sir Barnes Newcome. His Lord- 
ship jumps into a cab, and goes to the railroad. Issuing from the 
cemetery, the Marquis of Farintosh hastily orders that thing to be 
taken off his hat, and returns to town in his brougham, smoking a 
cigar. Sir Barnes Newcome rides in the brougham beside Lord 
Farintosh as far as Oxford Street, where he gets a cab, and goes to 


THE NEWCOMES 57 9 

the City. For business is business, and must be attended to, 
though grief be ever so severe. 

A very short time previous to her demise, Mr. Rood (that was 
Mr. Rood — that other little gentleman in black, who shared the 
third mourning coach along with her Ladyship’s medical man) had 
executed a will by which almost all the Countess’s property was 
devised to her granddaughter, Ethel Newcome. Lady Kew’s 
decease of course delayed the marriage projects for a while. The 
young heiress returned to her mother’s house in Park Lane. I 
dare say the deep mourning habiliments in which the domestics 
of that establishment appeared were purchased out of the funds 
left in his hands, which Ethel’s banker and brother had at her 
disposal. 

Sir Barnes Newcome, who was one of the trustees of his sister’s 
property, grumbled no doubt because his grandmother had be- 
queathed to him but a paltry recompense of five hundred pounds 
for his pains and trouble of trusteeship ; but his manner to Ethel 
was extremely bland and respectful : an heiress now, and to be 
marchioness in a few months, Sir Barnes treated her with a very 
different regard to that which he was accustomed to show to other 
members of his family. For while this worthy baronet would 
contradict his mother at every word she uttered, and take no pains 
to disguise his opinion that Lady Ann’s intellect was of the very 
poorest order, he would listen deferentially to Ethel’s smallest 
observations, exert himself to amuse her under her grief, which he 
chose to take for granted was very severe, visit her constantly, and 
show the most charming solicitude for her general comfort and 
welfare. 

During this time my wife received frequent notes from Ethel 
Newcome, and the intimacy between the two ladies much increased. 
Laura was so unlike the women of Ethel’s circle, the young lady 
was pleased to say, that to be with her was Ethel’s greatest comfort. 
Miss Newcome was now her own mistress, had her carriage, and 
would drive day after day to our cottage at Richmond. The frigid 
society of Lord Farintosh’s sisters, the conversation of his mother, 
did not amuse Ethel, and she escaped from both with her usual 
impatience of control. She was at home every day dutifully to 
receive my Lord’s visits, but though she did not open her mind to 
Laura as freely regarding the young gentleman as she did when the 
character and disposition of her future mother and sisters-in-law was 
the subject of their talk, I could see, from the grave look of com- 
miseration which my wife’s face bore after her young friend’s visits, 
that Mrs. Pendennis augured rather ill of the future happiness of 
this betrothed pair. Once, at Miss Newcome’s special request, I 


5 80 


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took my wife to see her in Park Lane, where the Marquis of 
Farintosh found us. His Lordship and I had already a half 
acquaintance, which was not, however, improved after my regular 
presentation to him by Miss Newcome : he scowled at me with a 
countenance indicative of anything but welcome, and did not seem 
in the least more pleased when Ethel entreated her friend Laura 
not to take her bonnet, not to think of going away so soon. She 
came to see us the very next day, stayed much longer with us than 
usual, and returned to town quite late in the evening, in spite of 
the entreaties of the inhospitable Laura, who would have had her 
leave us long before. “I am sure,” says clear-sighted Mrs. Laura, 
“ she is come out of bravado, and that after we went away yesterday 
there were words between her and Lord Farintosh on our account.” 

“ Confound the young man,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis in a 
fume ; “ what does he mean by his insolent airs ? ” 

“ He may think we are partisans de l’autre,” says Mrs. Pen- 
dennis, with a smile first, and a sigh afterwards, as she said “ Poor 
Clive ! ” 

“ Do you ever talk about Clive 1 ” asks the husband. 

“Never. Once, twice, perhaps, in the most natural manner in 
the world, we mentioned where he is ; but nothing further passes. 
The subject is a sealed one between us. She often looks at his 
drawings in my album” (Clive had drawn our baby there and its 
mother in a great variety of attitudes), “ and gazes at his sketch of 
his dear old father ; but of him she never says a word.” 

“ So it is best,” says Mr. Pendennis. 

“ Yes — best,” echoes Laura with a sigh. 

“You think, Laura,” continues the husband, “you think 
she ” 

“She what 1 ?” What did Mr. Pendennis mean 1 ? Laura his 
wife certainly understood him, though upon my conscience the 
sentence went no further — for she answered at once — 

“Yes — I think she certainly did, poor boy. But that, of 
course, is over now ; and Ethel, though she cannot help being a 
worldly woman, has such firmness and resolution of character, that 
if she has once determined to conquer any inclination of that sort I 
am sure she will master it, and make Lord Farintosh a very good 
wife.” 

“ Since the Colonel’s quarrel with Sir Barnes,” cries Mr. Pen- 
dennis, adverting by a natural transition from Ethel to her amiable 
brother, “our banking friend does not invite us any more ; Lady Clara 
sends you no cards. I have a great mind to withdraw my account.” 

Laura, who understands nothing about accounts, did not perceive 
the fine irony of this remark ; but her face straightway put on the 


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581 


severe expression which it chose to assume whenever Sir Barnes’s 
family was mentioned, and she said, “ My dear Arthur, I am very 
glad indeed that Lady Clara sends us no more of her invitations. 
You know very well why I disliked them.” 

“Why 1 ?” 

“ I hear baby crying,” says Laura. 0 Laura, Laura ! how could 
you tell your husband such a fib f — and she quits the room without 
deigning to give any answer to that “ Why 1 ” 

Let us pay a brief visit to Newcome in the North of England, 
and there we may get some answer to the question of which Mr. 
Pendennis had just in vain asked a reply from his wife. My design 
does not include a description of that great and flourishing town of 
Newcome, and of the manufactures which caused its prosperity ; but 
only admits of the introduction of those Newcomites who are con- 
cerned in the affairs of the family which has given its respectable 
name to these volumes. 

Thus in previous pages we have said nothing about the Mayor 
and Corporation of Newcome, the magnificent bankers and manu- 
facturers who had their places of business in the town, and their 
splendid villas outside its smoky precincts : people who would give 
their thousand guineas for a picture or a statue, and write you off 
a cheque for ten times the amount any day ; people who, if there 
was a talk of a statue to the Queen or the Duke, would come down 
to the Town ’All and subscribe their one, two, three ’undred apiece 
(especially if in the neighbouring city of Slowcome they were 
putting up a statue to the Duke or the Queen) — not of such men 
have I spoken, the magnates of the place ; but of the humble Sarah 
Mason in Jubilee Bow; of the Rev. Dr. Bidders the Yicar, Mr. 
Yidler the apothecary, Mr. Duff the baker ; of Tom Potts the jolly 

reporter of the Newcome Independent , and Batters, Esq., the 

proprietor of that journal — persons with whom our friends have had 
already, or will be found presently to have, some connection. And 
it is from these that we shall arrive at some particulars regarding 
the Newcome family, which will show us that they have a skeleton 
or two in their closets, as well as their neighbours. 

Now, how will you have the story 1 ? Worthy mammas of 
families — if you do not like to have your daughters told that bad 
husbands will make bad wives ; that marriages begun in indifference 
make homes unhappy ; that men whom girls are brought to swear 
to love and honour are sometimes false, selfish, and cruel ; and that 
women forget the oaths which they have been made to swear — if 
you will not hear of this, ladies, close the book, and send for some 
other. Banish the newspaper out of your houses, and shut your eyes 
to the truth, the awful truth, of life and sin. Is the world made of 


582 


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Jennies and Jessamies; and passion the play of schoolboys and school- 
girls, scribbling valentines and interchanging lollipops 1 Is life all over 
when Jenny and Jessamy are married ; and are there no subsequent 
trials, griefs, wars, bitter heart-pangs, dreadful temptations, defeats, 
remorses, sufferings to bear, and dangers to overcome ] As you and 
I, friend, kneel with our children round about us, prostrate before 
the Father of us all, and asking mercy for miserable sinners, are 
the young ones to suppose the words are mere form, and don’t apply 
to us] — to some outcasts in the free seats probably, or those 
naughty boys playing in the churchyard ] Are they not to know 
that we err too, and pray with all our hearts to be rescued from 
temptation] If such a knowledge is wrong for them, send them 
to church apart. Go you and worship in private; or, if not too 
proud, kneel humbly in the midst of them, owning your wrong, and 
praying Heaven to be merciful to you a sinner. 

When Barnes Newcome became the reigning Prince of the New- 
come family, and after the first agonies of grief for his father’s death 
had subsided, he made strong attempts to conciliate the principal 
persons in the neighbourhood, and to render himself popular in the 
borough. He gave handsome entertainments to the townsfolk and 
to the county gentry ; he tried even to bring those two warring 
classes together. He endeavoured to be civil to the Newcome In- 
dependent , the Opposition paper, as well as the Newcome Sentinel , 
that true old Uncompromising Blue. He asked the Dissenting 
clergymen to dinner, and the Low Church clergymen, as well as the 
orthodox Doctor Bulders and his curates. He gave a lecture at the 
Newcome Athenaeum, which everybody said was very amusing, and 
which Sentinel and Independent both agreed in praising. Of course 
he subscribed to that statue which the Newcomites were raising; 
to the philanthropic missions which the Reverend Low Church 
gentlemen were engaged in ; to the races (for the young Newcomite 
manufacturers are as sporting gents as any in the North), to the 
hospital, the “ People’s Library,” the restoration of the rood-screen, 
and the great painted window in Newcome Old Church (Rev. J. 
Bulders), and he had to pay in fine a most awful price for his privi- 
lege of sitting in Parliament as representative of his native place — 
as he called it in his speeches, “the cradle of his forefathers, the 
home of his race,” &c., though Barnes was in fact born at Clapham. 

Lady Clara could not in the least help this young statesman in 
his designs upon Newcome and the Newcomites. After she came 
into Barnes’s hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would 
smile and simper, and talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during 
Sir Brian’s life ; and among women, when Barnes was not present. 
But as soon as he joined the company, it was remarked that his 


THE NEWCOMES 


583 


wife became silent, and looked eagerly towards him whenever she 
ventured to speak. She blundered, her eyes filled with tears ; the 
little wit she had, left her in her husband’s presence : he grew angry, 
and tried to hide his anger with a sneer, or broke out with a jibe 
and an oath when he lost patience, and Clara, whimpering, would 
leave the room. Everybody at Newcome knew that Barnes bullied 
his wife. 

People had worse charges against Barnes than wife-bullying. 
Do you suppose that little interruption which occurred at Barnes’s 
marriage was not known in Newcome? His victim had been a 
Newcome girl, the man to whom she was betrothed was in a New- 
come factory. When Barnes was a young man, and, in his occa- 
sional visits to Newcome, lived along with those dashing young 
blades Sam Jollyman (Jollyman Brothers and Bowcher), Bob 
Homer, Cross Country Bill, Al. Rucker (for whom his father had 
to pay eighteen thousand pounds after the Leger the year Toggery 
won it), and that wild lot, all sorts of stories were told of them, 
and of Barnes especially. Most of them were settled, and steady 
business men by this time. Al., it was known, had become very 
serious, besides making his fortune in cotton. Bob Homer managed 
the bank ; and as for S. Jollyman, Mrs. S. J. took uncommon good 
care that he didn’t break out of bounds any more ; why, he was 
not even allowed to play a game at billiards, or to dine out without 
her. ... I could go on giving you interesting particulars of a 
hundred members of the Newcome aristocracy, were not our atten- 
tion especially directed to one respectable family. 

All Barnes’s endeavours at popularity were vain, partly from 
his own fault, and partly from the nature of mankind, and of the 
Newcome folks especially, whom no single person could possibly 
conciliate. Thus, suppose he gave the advertisements to the In- 
dependent, the old Blue paper the Sentinel was very angry : 
suppose he asked Mr. Hunch, the Dissenting minister, to bless the 
table-cloth after dinner, as he had begged Dr. Bidders to utter a 
benediction on the first course, Hunch and Bulders were both angry. 
He subscribed to the races — what heathenism ! to the missionaries 
— what sanctimonious humbug ! And the worst was that Barnes, 
being young at that time and not able to keep his tongue in order, 
could not help saying, not to, but of such and such a man, that “ he 
was an infernal ass, or a confounded old idiot,” and so forth — 
peevish phrases, which undid in a moment the work of a dozen 
dinners, countless compliments, and months of grinning good- 
humour. 

Now he is wiser. He is very proud of being Newcome of New- 
come, and quite believes that the place is his hereditary principality. 


584 


THE NEWCOMES 


But still, he says, his father was a fool for ever representing the 
borough. “ Dammy, sir,” cries Sir Barnes, “ never sit for a place 
that lies at your park-gates, and, above all. never try to conciliate 
’em. Curse ’em ! Hate ’em well, sir. Take a line, and flog the 
fellows on the other side. Since I have sat in Parliament for 
another place, I have saved myself I don’t know how much a year. 
I never go to High Church or Low ; don’t give a shillin’ to the 
confounded races, or the infernal soup-tickets, or to the miserable 
missionaries ; and at last live in quiet.” 

So, in spite of all his subscriptions, and his coaxing of the 
various orders of Newco mites, Sir Barnes Newcome was not popular 
among them ; and while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy 
friends not even on his own. Scarce a man but felt Barnes was 
laughing at him ; Bidders, in his pulpit, Holder, who seconded him 
in his election, the Newcome society, and the ladies even more than 
the men, were uneasy under his ominous familiarity, and recovered 
their good-humour when he left them. People felt as if it was a 
truce only, and not an alliance with him, and always speculated on 
the possibility of war : when he turned his back on them in the 
market, men felt relieved, and as they passed his gate looked with 
no friendly glances over his park-wall. 

What happened within was perfectly familiar to many persons. 
Our friend was insolent to all his servants ; and of course very well 
served, but very much disliked in consequence. The butler was 
familiar with Taplow — the housekeeper had a friend at Newcome : 
Mrs. Taplow, in fact, of the “ King’s Arms ” — one of the grooms 
at Newcome Park kept company with Mrs. Bulders’s maid : the 
incomings and outgoings, the quarrels and tears, the company from 
London, and all the doings of the folks at Newcome Park were 
thus known to the neighbourhood round about. The apothecary 
brought an awful story back from Newcome. He had been called 
to Lady Clara in strong hysterical fits. He found her Ladyship 
with a bruise on her face. When Sir Barnes approached her (he 
would not allow the medical man to see her except in his presence) 
she screamed, and bade him not come near her. These things did 
Mr. Yidler weakly impart to Mrs. Yidler : these, under solemn 
vows of secrecy, Mrs. Yidler told to one or two friends. Sir Barnes 
and Lady Clara were seen shopping together very graciously in 
Newcome a short time afterwards ; persons who dined at the Park 
said the Baronet and his wife seemed on very good terms ; but — 
but that story of the bruised cheek remained in the minds of certain 
people, and lay by at compound interest as such stories will. 

Now, say people quarrel and make it up; or don’t make it up, 
but wear a smirking face to society, and call each other “ my dear ” 


THE NEWCOMES 


585 


and “my love,” and smooth over their countenances before John, 
who enters with the coals as they are barking and biting, or who 
announces the dinner as they are tearing each other’s eyes out. 
Suppose a woman is ever so miserable, and yet smiles, and doesn’t 
show her grief “ Quite right,” say her prudent friends, and her 

husband’s relations above all. “My dear, you have too much 

propriety to exhibit your grief before the world, or, above all, before 
the darling children.” So to lie is your duty, to lie to your friends, 
to yourself if you can, to your children. 

Does this discipline of hypocrisy improve any mortal woman 1 
Say she learns to smile after a blow, do you suppose in this matter 
alone she will be a hypocrite Poor Lady Clara ! I fancy a better 

lot for you than that to which fate handed you over. I fancy 

there need have been no deceit in your fond simple little heart 
could it but have been given into other keeping. But you were 
consigned to a master whose scorn and cruelty terrified you ; under 
whose sardonic glances your scared eyes were afraid to look up, 
and before whose gloomy coldness you dared not be happy. Suppose 
a little plant, very frail and delicate from the first, but that might 
have bloomed sweetly and borne fair flowers, had it received warm 
shelter and kindly nurture ; suppose a young creature taken out of 
her home, and given over to a hard master whose caresses are as 
insulting as his neglect ; consigned to cruel usage ; to weary loneli- 
ness ; to bitter bitter recollections of the past ; suppose her schooled 
into hypocrisy by tyranny — and then, quick, let us hire an advocate 
to roar out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured husband, 
to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate gets 
plaintiff’s brief in time, and before defendant’s attorney has retained 
him), and to show Society injured through him. Let us console 
that martyr, I say, with thumping damages ; and as for the woman 
— the guilty wretch ! — let us lead her out and stone her. 


CHAPTER LVI 


ROSA QUO LOCORUM SERA MORATUR 

C LIVE NEWCOME bore his defeat with such a courage 
and resolution as those who knew the young fellow’s 
character were sure he would display. It was whilst he 
had a little lingering hope still that the poor lad was in the 
worst condition ; as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst his 
last few guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against 
the overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, 
gone, our friend rises up from that unlucky table — beaten at the 
contest but not broken in spirit. He goes back into the world 
again and withdraws from that dangerous excitement ; sometimes 
when he is alone or wakeful, tossing in his bed at nights, he may 
recall the fatal game, and think how he might have won it — think 
what a fool he was ever to have played it at all — but these cogita- 
tions Clive kept for himself. He was magnanimous enough not 
even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side against his father, 
who, it must be confessed, now exhibited a violent hostility against 
that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger and utterly 
beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcome was once roused, 
or at length believed that he was cheated, woe to the offender ! 
From that day forth, Thomas believed no good of him. Every 
thought or action of his enemy’s life seemed treason to the worthy 
Colonel. If Barnes gave a dinner-party, his uncle was ready to 
fancy that the banker wanted to poison somebody; if he made 
a little speech in the House of Commons (Barnes did make little 
speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel was sure some 
infernal conspiracy lay under the villain’s words. The whole of 
that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their kins- 
man’s hands — they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly ; — 
Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her 
up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it 
the more mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked or liked 
undeservedly 1 

Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his 
misfortune : and now Thomas Newcome had the chance of making 


THE NEWCOMES 


587 


that tour with his son which in early days had been such a 
favourite project with the good man. They travelled Rhineland 
and Switzerland together — they crossed into Italy — went from 
Milan to Venice (where Clive saluted the greatest painting in the 
world — the glorious “ Assumption ” of Titian) — they went to 
Trieste, and over the beautiful Styrian Alps to Vienna — they 
beheld the Danube, and the plain where the Turk and Sobieski 
fought. They travelled at a prodigious fast pace. They did not 
speak much to one another. They were a pattern pair of English 
travellers. I dare say many persons whom they met smiled to 
observe them ; and shrugged their shoulders at the aspect of ces 
Anglais. They did not know the care in the young traveller’s 
mind ; and the deep tenderness and solicitude of the elder. Clive 
wrote to say it was a very pleasant tour, but I think I should not 
have liked to join it. Let us dismiss it in this single sentence. 
Other gentlemen have taken the same journey, and with sorrow 
perhaps as their silent fellow-traveller. How you remember the 
places afterwards and the thoughts which pursued you ! If in 
after days, when your grief is dead and buried, you revisit the 
scenes in which it was your companion, how its ghost rises and 
shows itself again ! Suppose this part of Mr. Clive’s life were to 
be described at length in several chapters, and not in a single brief 
sentence, what dreary pages they would be ! In two or three 
months our friends saw a number of men, cities, mountains, rivers, 
and what not. It was yet early autumn when they were back in 
France again, and September found them at Brussels, where James 
Binnie, Esquire, and his family were established in comfortable 
quarters, and where we may be sure Clive and his father were 
very welcome. 

Dragged abroad at first sorely against his will, James Binnie 
had found the Continental life pretty much to his liking. He had 
passed a winter at Pau, a summer at Vichy, where the waters had 
done him good. His ladies had made several charming foreign 
acquaintances. Mrs. Mackenzie had quite a list of Counts and 
Marchionesses among her friends. The excellent Captain Goby 
wandered about the country with them. Was it to Rosey, was it 
to her mother, the Captain was most attached 1 Rosey received 
him as a godpapa; Mrs. Mackenzie as a wicked, odious, good-for- 
nothing, dangerous, delightful creature. Is it humiliating, is it 
consolatory, to remark, with what small wit some of our friends are 
amused ? The jovial sallies of Goby appeared exquisite to Rosey ’s 
mother, and to the girl probably ; though that young Bahawder of 
a Clive Newcome chose to wear a grave face (confound his insolent 
airs !) at the very best of the Goby jokes. 


588 


THE NEWCOMES 


In Goby’s train was his fervent admirer and inseparable young 
friend, Clarence Hoby. Captain Hoby and Captain Goby travelled 
the world together, visited Hombourg and Baden, Cheltenham and 
Leamington, Paris and Brussels, in company, belonged to the same 
club in London — the centre of all pleasure, fashion, and joy, for the 
young officer and the older campaigner. The jokes at the “ Flag,” 
the dinners at the “ Flag,” the committee of the “ Flag,” were 
the theme of their constant conversation. Goby, fifty years old, 
unattached, and with dyed mustachios, was the affable comrade of 
the youngest member of his club ; when absent, a friend wrote him 
the last riddle from the smoking-room ; when present, his knowledge 
of horses, of cookery, wines, and cigars, and military history, rendered 
him a most acceptable companion. He knew the history and achieve 
inents of every regiment in the army ; of every general and command 
ing officer. He was known to have been “ out ” more than once 
himself, and had made up a hundred quarrels. He was certainly 
not a man of an ascetic life or a profound intellectual culture : but 
though poor he was known to be most honourable ; though more 
than middle-aged he was cheerful, busy, and kindly ; and though 
the youngsters called him Old Goby, he bore his years very gaily 
and handsomely, and I dare say numbers of ladies besides Mrs. 
Mackenzie thought him delightful. Goby’s talk and rattle perhaps 
somewhat bored James Binnie, but Thomas Newcome found the 
Captain excellent company; and Goby did justice to the good 
qualities of the Colonel. 

Clive’s father liked Brussels very well. He and his son occupied 
very handsome quarters, near the spacious apartments in the Park 
which James Binnie’s family inhabited. Waterloo was not far off, 
to which the Indian officer paid several visits with Captain Goby 
for a guide ; and many of Marlborough’s battle-fields were near, in 
which Goby certainly took but a minor interest ; but on the other 
hand Clive beheld these with the greatest pleasure, and painted more 
than one dashing piece, in which Churchill and Eugene, Cutts and 
Cadogan, were the heroes ; whose flowing periwigs, huge boots, and 
thundering Flemish chargers were, he thought, more novel and pictu- 
resque than the Duke’s surtout, and the French Grenadiers’ hairy 
caps, which so many English and French artists have portrayed. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were invited by our kind Colonel to 
pass a month — six months if they chose — at Brussels, and were 
most splendidly entertained by our friends in that city. A suite 
of handsome rooms was set apart for us. My study communicated 
with Clive’s atelier. Many an hour did we pass, and many a ride 
and walk did we take together. I observed that Clive never 
mentioned Miss Newcome’s name, and Laura and I agreed that it 


THE NEW COMES 


589 


was as well not to recall it. Only once, when we read the death 
of Lady Glenlivat, Lord Farintosh’s mother, in the newspaper, I 
remember to have said, “ I suppose that marriage will be put off 
again.” 

“Qu’est-ce que cela me fait?” says Mr. Clive gloomily, over his 
picture — a cheerful piece representing Count Egmont going to 
execution ; in which I have the honour to figure as a halberdier, 
Captain Hoby as the Count, — and Captain Goby as the Duke of 
Alva, looking out of window. 

Mrs. Mackenzie was in a state of great happiness and glory 
during this winter. She had a carriage, and worked that vehicle 
most indefatigably. She knew a great deal of good company at 
Brussels. She had an evening for receiving. She herself went to 
countless evening parties, and had the joy of being invited to a 
couple of Court balls, at which I am bound to say her daughter and 
herself both looked very handsome. The Colonel brushed up his 
old uniform and attended these entertainments. M. Newcome fils, 
as I should judge, was not the worst-looking man in the room ; and, 
as these young people waltzed together (in which accomplishment 
Clive was very much more skilful than Captain Hoby), I dare say 
many people thought he and Bosey made a pretty couple. 

Most persons, my wife included, difficult as that lady is to 
please, were pleased with the pretty little Rosey. She sang charm- 
ingly now, and looked so while singing. If her mother would but 
have omitted that chorus, which she cackled perse veringly behind 
her daughter’s pretty back : about Rosey’s angelic temper ; about 
the compliments Signor Polonini paid her ; about Sir Horace Dash, 
our Minister, insisting upon her singing “ Batti Batti ” over again, 
and the Archduke dapping his hands and saying, “ Oh yes ! ” 
about Count Yanderslaapen’s attentions to her, &c. &c. ; but for 
these constant remarks of Mrs. Mack’s, I am sure no one would 
have been better pleased with Miss Rosey’s singing and behaviour 
than myself. As for Captain Hoby, it was easy to see how he was 
affected towards Miss Rosalind’s music and person. 

And indeed few things could be pleasanter than to watch the 
behaviour of this pretty little maid with her Uncle James and his 
old chum the Colonel. The latter was soon as fond of her as James 
Binnie himself, whose face used to lighten with pleasure whenever 
it turned towards hers. She seemed to divine his wants, as she 
would trip across the room to fulfil them. She skipped into the 
carriage and covered his feet with a shawl — -James was lazy and 
chilly now — when he took his drive. She sat opposite to him and 
smiled on him ; and, if he dozed, quick another handkerchief was 
round his neck. I do not know whether she understood his jokes, 


590 


THE NEWCOMES 


but she saluted them always with a sweet kind smile. How she 
kissed him, and how delighted she was if he brought her a bouquet 
for her ball that night ! One day, upon occasion of one of these 
balls, James and Thomas, those two old boys, absolutely came into 
Mrs. Mackenzie’s drawing-room with a bouquet apiece for Miss 
Rosey ; and there was a fine laughing. 

“ 0 you little Susanna ! ” says James, after taking his usual 
payment: “now go and pay t’other elder.” Rosey did not quite 
understand at first, being, you see, more ready to laugh at jokes 
than to comprehend them : but when she did, I promise you she 
looked uncommonly pretty as she advanced to Colonel Ncwcome and 
put that pretty fresh cheek of hers up to his grizzled mustachio. 

“ I protest I don’t know which of you blushes the most,” 
chuckled James Binnie — and the truth is, the old man and the 
young girl had both hung out those signals of amiable distress. 

On this day, and as if Miss Rosey was to be overpowered by 
flowers, who should come presently to dinner but Captain Hoby, 
with another bouquet ! on which Uncle James said Rosey should go 
to the ball like an American Indian, with her scalps at her belt. 

“ Scalps ! ” cries Mrs. Mackenzie. 

“ Scalps ! Oh law, uncle ! ” exclaims Miss Rosey. “ What 
can you mean by anything so horrid ? ” 

Goby recalls to Mrs. Mack, Hook-ee-ma-goosh, the Indian chief, 
whom she must have seen when the Hundred and Fiftieth were at 
Quebec, and who had his lodge full of them ; and who used to lie 
about the barracks so drunk, and who used to beat his poor little 
European wife ; and presently Mr. Clive Newcome joins this com- 
pany, when the chirping, tittering, joking, laughing, cease somehow. 

Has Clive brought a bouquet too 1 ? No. He has never thought 
about a bouquet. He is dressed in black, with long hair, a long 
mustachio, and melancholy imperial. He looks very handsome, but 
as glum as an undertaker. And James Binnie says, “ Egad, Tom, 
they used to call you the knight of the woeful countenance, and 
Clive has just inherited the paternal mug.” Then James calls out 
in a cheery voice, “ Dinner, dinner ! ” and trots off with Mrs. Pen- 
dennis under his arm ; Rosey nestles up against the Colonel ; Goby 
and Mrs. Mack walk away arm-in-arm very contentedly ; and I 
don’t know with which of her three nosegays pretty Rosey appears 
at the ball. 

Our stay with our friends at Brussels could not be prolonged 
beyond a month, for at the end of that period we were under an 
engagement to other friends in England, who were good enough to 
desire the presence of Mrs. Pendennis and her suite of baby, nurse, 



ROSA RETURNS THANKS. 







































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and husband. So we presently took leave of Rosey and the 
Campaigner, of the two stout elders, and our melancholy young 
Clive, who bore us company to Antwerp, and who won Laura’s 
heart by the neat way in which he took her child on board ship. 
Poor fellow ! how sad he looked as he bowed to us and took off his 
hat ! His eyes did not seem to be looking at us, though : they 
and his thoughts were turned another way. He moved off imme- 
diately, with his head down, puffing his eternal cigar, and lost in 
his own meditations; our going or our staying was of very little 
importance to the lugubrious youth. 

“I think it was a great pity they came to Brussels,” says 
Laura, as we sat on the deck, while her unconscious infant was 
cheerful, and while the water of the lazy Scheldt as yet was 
smooth. 

“Who? The Colonel and Clive? They are very handsomely 
lodged. They have a good maitre-d’hotel. Their dinners, I am 
sure, are excellent; and your child, madam, is as healthy as it 
possibly can be.” 

“ Blessed darling ! Yes ! ” (Blessed darling crows, moos, jumps 
in his nurse’s arms, and holds out a little mottled hand for a biscuit 
of Savoy, which mamma supplies.) “ I can’t help thinking, Arthur, 
that Rosey would have been much happier as Mrs. Hoby than she 
will be as Mrs. Newcome.” 

“Who thinks of her being Mrs. Newcome?” 

“ Her mother, her uncle, and Clive’s father. Since the Colonel 
has been so rich, I think Mrs. Mackenzie sees a great deal of 
merit in Clive. Rosey will do anything her mother bids her. If 
Clive can be brought to the same obedience, Uncle James and the 
Colonel will be delighted. Uncle James has set his heart on this 
marriage. (He and his sister agree upon this point.) He told me, 
last night, that he would sing ‘Nunc dimittis,’ could he but see the 
two children happy ; and that he should lie easier in purgatory if 
that could be brought about.” 

“ And what did you say, Laura ? ” 

“ I laughed, and told Uncle James I was of the Hoby faction. 
He is very good-natured, frank, honest, and gentlemanlike, Mr. 
Hoby. But Uncle James said he thought Mr. Hoby was so — well, 
so stupid — that his Rosey would be thrown away upon the poor 
Captain. So I did not tell Uncle James that, before Clive’s arrival, 
Rosey had found Captain Hoby far from stupid. He used to sing 
duets with her ; he used to ride with her before Clive came. Last 
winter, when they were at Pau, I feel certain Miss Rosey thought 
Captain Hoby very pleasant indeed. She thinks she was attached 
to Clive formerly, and now she admires him, and is dreadfully 


592 


THE NEWCOMES 


afraid of him. He is taller and handsomer, and richer and cleverer 
than Captain Hoby, certainly.” 

“ I should think so, indeed,” breaks out Mr. Pendennis. “ Why, 
my dear, Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer’s day. 
It does one good to look at him. What a pair of frank bright blue 
eyes he has, or used to have, till this mishap overclouded them ! 
What a pleasant laugh he has ! What a well-built, agile figure it 
is — what pluck, and spirit, and honour there is about my young 
chap ! I don’t say he is a genius of the highest order, but he is 
the staunchest, /the bravest, the cheeriest, the most truth-telling, 
the kindest heart. Compare him and Hoby ! Why, Clive is an 
eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing owl ! ” 

“ I like to hear you speak so,” cries Mrs. Laura very tenderly. 
“ People say that you are always sneering, Arthur ; but I know my 
husband better. We know papa better, don’t we, baby 1 ?” (Here 
my wife kisses the infant Pendennis with great effusion, who has 
come up dancing on his nurse’s arms.) “ But,” says she, coming 
back and snuggling by her husband’s side again — “But suppose 
your favourite Clive is an eagle, Arthur, don’t you think he had 
better have an eagle for a mate ? If he were to marry little Rosey, 
I dare say he would be very good to her ; but I think neither he 
nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for his 
pursuits ; she does not understand him when he talks. The two 
captains, and Rosey and I, and the Campaigner, as you call her, 
laugh and talk, and prattle, and have the merriest little jokes with 
one another, and we all are as quiet as mice when you and Clive 
come in.” 

“What, am I an eagle too? I have no aquiline pretensions 
at all, Mrs. Pendennis.” 

“No. Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid 
of papa, are we, darling?” this young woman now calls out to 
the other member of her family ; who, if you will calculate, has 
just had time to be walked twice up and down the deck of the 
steamer, whilst Laura has been making her speech about eagles. 
And soon the mother, child, and attendant descend into the lower 
cabins : and then dinner is announced : and Captain Jackson treats 
us to champagne from his end of the table : and yet a short while, 
and we are at sea, and conversation becomes impossible ; and morn- 
ing sees us under the grey London sky, and amid the million of 
masts in the Thames. 


CHAPTER LVII 


ROSE BURY AND NEW COME 

T HE friends to whom we were engaged in England were Florae 
and his wife, Madame la Princesse de Mon tcon tour, who were 
determined to spend the Christmas holidays at the Princess’s 
country seat. It was for the first time since their reconciliation 
that the Prince and Princess dispensed their hospitalities at the latter’s 
chateau. It is situated, as the reader has already been informed, 
at some five miles from the town of Newcome; away from the 
chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that place, in a sweet country 
of rural woodlands ; over which quiet villages, grey church spires, 
and ancient gabled farm-houses are scattered : still wearing the 
peaceful aspect which belonged to them when Newcome was as yet 
but an antiquated country town, before mills were erected on its 
river banks, and dyes and cinders blackened its stream. Twenty 
years since, Newcome Park was the only great house in that district; 
now scores of fine villas have sprung up in the suburb lying between 
the town and park. Newcome New Town, as everybody knows, 
has grown round the park gates, and the “ New Town Hotel ” 
(where the railway station is) is a splendid structure in the Tudor 
style, more ancient in appearance than the park itself; surrounded 
by little antique villas with spiked gables, stacks of crooked chimneys, 
and plate-glass windows looking upon trim lawns ; with glistening 
hedges of evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and Elizabethan gig- 
houses. Under the great railway viaduct of the New Town goes 
the old tranquil winding London highroad, once busy with a score 
of gay coaches, and ground by innumerable wheels ; but at a few 
miles from the New Town Station the road has become so mouldy 
that the grass actually grows on it; and Rosebury, Madame de 
Montcontour’s house, stands at one end of a village-green which 
is even more quiet now than it was a hundred years ago. 

When first Madame de Florae bought the place, it scarcely 
ranked amongst the county houses ; and she, the sister of manu- 
facturers at Newcome and Manchester, did not of course visit the 
county families. A homely little body, married to a Frenchman 
from whom she was separated, may or may not have done a great 
8 2 p 


594 , 


THE NEWCOMES 


deal of good in her village, have had pretty gardens, and won prizes 
at the Newcome flower and fruit shows ; but, of course, she was 

nobody in such an aristocratic county as we all know shire is. 

She had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many of them 
were Quakers — many were retail shopkeepers. She even frequented 
the little branch Ebenezer, on Rosebury Green ; and it was only by 
her charities and kindness at Christmas time, that the Rev. Dr. 
Potter, the rector at Rosebury, knew her. The old clergy, you see, 
live with the county families. Good little Madame de Florae was 
pitied and patronised by the Doctor ; treated with no little super- 
ciliousness by Mrs. Potter and the young ladies, who only kept the 
first society. Even when her rich brother died, and she got her 
share of all that money, Mrs. Potter said poor Madame de Florae 
did well in not trying to move out of her natural sphere (Mrs. P. 
was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in London, and had herself 
been governess in a noble family, out of which she married Mr. P., 
who was private tutor). Madame de Florae did well, she said, not 
to endeavour to leave her natural sphere, and that The County 
never would receive her. Tom Potter, the rector’s son, with whom 
I had the good fortune to be a fellow-student at Saint Boniface 
College, Oxbridge — a rattling, forward, and, it must be owned, 
vulgar youth — asked me whether Florae was not a billiard-marker 
by profession ? and was even so kind as to caution his sisters not to 
speak of billiards before the lady of Rosebury. Tom was surprised 
to learn that Monsieur Paul de Florae was a gentleman of lineage 
incomparably better than that of any except two or three families 
in England (including your own, my dear and respected reader, of 
course, if you hold to your pedigree). But the truth is, heraldically 
speaking, that union with the Higgs of Manchester was the first 
misalliance which the Florae family had made for long long years. 
Not that I would wish for a moment to insinuate that any nobleman 
is equal to an English nobleman ; nay, that an English snob, with 
a coat-of-arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of Edmonston, or a 
pedigree purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right to look 
down upon any of your paltry foreign nobility. 

One day the carriage-and-four came in state from Newcome 
Park, with the well-known chaste liveries of the Newcomes, and 
drove up Rosebury Green, towards the parsonage gate, where Mrs. 
and the Miss Potters happened to be standing, cheapening fish from 
a donkey-man, with whom they were in the habit of dealing. The 
ladies were in their pokiest old head-gear and most dingy gowns, 
when they perceived the carriage approaching ; and considering, of 
course, that the visit of the Park people was intended for them, 
dashed into the rectory to change their clothes, leaving Rowkins, 


THE NEWCOMES 


595 


the costermonger, in the very midst of the negotiation about the 
three mackerel. Mamma got that new bonnet out of the bandbox ; 
Lizzy and Liddy skipped up to their bedroom, and brought out 
those dresses which they wore at the dejeuner at the New come 
Athenaeum, when Lord Leveret came down to lecture; into which 
they no sooner had hooked their lovely shoulders, than they reflected 
with terror that mamma had been altering one of papa’s flannel 
waistcoats, and had left it in the drawing-room, when they were 
called out by the song of Rowkins, and the appearance of his 
donkey’s ears over the green gate of the rectory. To think of the 
Park people coming, and the drawing-room in that dreadful state ! 

But when they came downstairs, the Park people were not in 
the room — the woollen garment was still on the table (how they 
plunged it into the chiffonier !) — and the only visitor was Rowkins 
the costermonger, grinning at the open French windows, with the 
three mackerel, and crying “Make it sixpence, miss — don’t say 
fippens, ma’am, to a pore fellow that has a wife and family.” So 
that the young ladies had to cry — “ Impudence ! ” “ Get away, you 
vulgar insolent creature !• — Go round, sir, to the back door.” “ How 
dare you!” and the like; fearing lest Lady Ann Newcome, and' 
young Ethel, and Barnes should enter in the midst of this ignoble 
controversy. 

They never came at all — those Park people. How very odd ! 
They passed the rectory gate ; they drove on to Madame de Florae’s 
lodge. They went in. They stayed for half-an-hour ; the horses 
driving round and round the gravel road before the house ; and 
Mrs. Potter and the girls, speedily going to the upper chambers, 
and looking out of the room where the maids slept, saw Lady 
Ann, Ethel, and Barnes walking with Madame de Florae, going into 
the conservatories, issuing thence with MacWhirter, the gardener, 
bearing huge bunches of grapes and large fasces of flowers ; they 
saw Barnes talking in the most respectful manner to Madame de 
Florae ; and when they went downstairs and had their work before 
them — Liddy her gilt music-book, Lizzy her embroidered altar-cloth, 
mamma her scarlet cloak for one of the old women — they had the 
agony of seeing the barouche over the railings whisk by, with the 
Park people inside, and Barnes driving the four horses. 

It was on that day when Barnes had determined to take up 
Madame de Florae ; when he was bent upon reconciling her to her 
husband. In spite of all Mrs. Potter’s predictions, the county 
families did come and visit the manufacturer’s daughter ; and when 
Madame de Florae became Madame la Princesse de Montcontour, 
when it was announced that she was coming to stay at Rosebury 
for Christmas, I leave you to imagine whether the circumstance 


THE NEWCOMES 


596 

was or was not mentioned in the Newcome Sentinel and the Newcome 
Independent ; and whether Rev. G. Potter, D.D., and Mrs. Potter 
did or did not call on the Prince and Princess. I leave you to 
imagine whether the lady did or did not inspect all the alterations 
which Vineer’s people from Newcome were making at Rosebury 
House — the chaste yellow satin and gold of the drawing-room — the 
carved oak for the dining-room — the chintz for the bedrooms — the 
Princess’s apartment — the prince’s apartment — the guests’ apart- 
ments — the smoking-room, gracious goodness ! — the stables (these 
were under Tom Potter’s superintendence), “ and I’m dashed,” says 
he one day, “if here doesn’t come a billiard-table ! ” 

The house was most comfortably and snugly appointed from 
top to bottom ; and thus it will be seen that Mr. and Mrs. Pen- 
dennis were likely to be in very good quarters for their Christmas 
of 184—. 

Tom Potter was so kind as to call on me two days after our 
arrival ; and to greet me in the Princess’s pew at church on the 
previous day. Before desiring to be introduced to my wife, he 
requested me to present him to my friend the Prince. He called 
him Your Highness. His Highness, who had behaved with 
exemplary gravity, save once when he shrieked an “ah !” as Miss 
Liddy led oft* the children in the organ-loft in a hymn, and the 
whole pack went woefully out of tune, complimented Monsieur Tom 
on the sermon of monsieur his father. Tom walked back with us 
to Rosebury Lodge gate. “Will you not come in, and make a party 
of billiard with me?” says his Highness. “Ah, pardon! I forgot, 
you do not play the billiard the Sunday ! ” “ Any other day , Prince, 
I shall be delighted,” says Tom ; and squeezed his Highness’s hand 
tenderly at parting. “Your comrade of college, was he?” asks Florae. 
“ My dear, what men are these comrades of college ! What men 
are you English ! My word of honour, there are some of them here 
- — if I were to say to them wax my boots, they wmuld take them and 
wax them ! Didst thou see how the Rdv^rend eyed us during the 
sermon ? He regarded us over his book, my word of honour ! ” 

Madame de Florae said, simply, she wished the Prince would go 
and hear Mr. Jacob at the Ebenezer. Mr. Potter was not a good 
preacher, certainly. 

“ Savez-vous qu’elle est furieusement belle la fille du Rdvdrend ? ” 
whispered his Highness to me. “ I have made eyes at her during 
the sermon. They will be of pretty neighbours these mees ! ” and 
Paul looked unutterably roguish and victorious as he spoke. To 
my wife, I am bound to say, Monsieur de Montcontour showed a 
courtesy, a respect and kindness, that could not be exceeded. He 
admired her. He paid her compliments innumerable, and gave me, 


THE NEWCOMES 


597 

I am sure, sincere congratulations at possessing such a treasure. 
I do not think he doubted about his power of conquering her, or 
any other of the daughters of women. But I was the friend of his 
misfortunes — his guest ; and he spared me. 

I have seen nothing more amusing, odd, and pleasant than 
Florae at this time of his prosperity. We arrived, as this 
veracious chronicle has already asserted, on a Saturday evening. 
We were conducted to our most comfortable apartments; with 
crackling fires blazing on the hearths, and every warmth of 
welcome. Florae expanded and beamed with good-nature. He 
shook me many times by the hand ; he patted me ; he called me 
his good — his brave. He cried to his maitre-d’hotel, “ Frdddric, 
remember monsieur is master here ! Bun before his orders. Pros- 
trate thyself to him. He was good to me in the days of my 
misfortune. Hearest thou, Frdd&ic 1 See that everything be done 
for Monsieur Pendennis — for Madame sa charmante lady — for her 
angelic infant, and the bonne. None of thy garrison tricks with 
that young person, Fr&teric, vieux scdl^rat ! Garde-toi de lk, 
Frdddric : si non, je t’envoie k Botani Bay ; je te traduis devant 
le Lord-Maire ! ” 

“ En Angleterre je me fais Anglais, vois-tu, mon ami,” continued 
the Prince. “ Demain e’est Sunday, et tu vas voir ! I hear the 
bell, dress thyself for the dinner — my friend ! ” Here there was 
another squeeze of both hands from the good-natured fellow. “ It 
do good to my ’art to ’ave you in my ’ouse ! Heuh ! ” He hugged 
his guest ; he had tears in his eyes as he performed this droll, this 
kind embrace. Not less kind in her way, though less expansive 
and embracive , was Madame de Montcontour to my wife, as I 
found on comparing notes with that young woman, when the day’s 
hospitalities were ended. The little Princess trotted from bed- 
chamber to nursery to see that everything was made comfortable 
for her guests. She sat and saw the child washed and put to bed. 
She had never beheld such a little angel. She brought it a fine toy 
to play with. She and her grim old maid frightened the little 
creature at first, but it was very speedily reconciled to their 
countenances. She was in the nursery as early as the child’s 
mother. “ Ah ! ” sighed the poor little woman, “ how happy you 
must be to have one.” In fine my wife was quite overcome by her 
goodness and welcome. 

Sunday morning arrived in the course of time, and then Florae 
appeared as a most wonderful Briton indeed ! He wore topboots 
and buckskins; and after breakfast, when he went to church, a 
white greatcoat with a little cape, in which garment he felt that 
his similarity to an English gentleman was perfect. In conversation 


598 


THE NEWCOMES 


with his grooms and servants he swore freely, — not that he was 
accustomed to employ oaths in his own private talk, but he thought 
the employment of these expletives necessary as an English country 
gentleman. He never dined without a roast beef, and insisted that 
the piece of meat should be bleeding, “ as you love it, you others.” 
He got up boxing-matches ; and kept birds for combats of cock. 
He assumed the sporting language with admirable enthusiasm — 
drove over to cover with a steppere — rode across contri like a good 
one — was splendid in the hunting-field in his velvet cap and 
Napoleon boots, and made the Hunt welcome at Rosebury, where 
his good-natured little wife was as kind to the gentlemen in scarlet 
as she used to be of old to the stout Dissenting gentlemen in black, 
who sang hymns and spake sermons on her lawn. These folks, 
scared at the change which had taken place in the little Princess’s 
habits of life, lamented her falling away; but in the county she 
and her husband got a great popularity, and in Newcome town 
itself they were not less liked, for her benefactions were unceas- 
ing, and Paul’s affability the theme of all praise. The Newcome 
Independent and the Newcome Sentinel both paid him compli- 
ments ; the former journal contrasting his behaviour with that of 
Sir Barnes, their Member. Florae’s pleasure was to drive his 
Princess with four horses into Newcome. He called his carriage 
his “ trappe,” his “ drague.” The street-boys cheered and hurrahed 
the Prince as he passed through the town. One haberdasher had 
a yellow stock called “ The Montcontour ” displayed in his windows ; 
another had a pink one marked “The Princely,” and as such 
recommended it to the young Newcome gents. 

The drague conveyed us once to the neighbouring house of 
Newcome, whither my wife accompanied Madame de Montcontour at 
that lady’s own request, to whom Laura very properly did not think 
fit to confide her antipathy for Lady Clara Newcome. Coming away 
from a great house, how often she and I, egotistical philosophers, 
thanked our fates that our own home was a small one ! How long 
will great houses last in this world? Do not their owners now 
prefer a lodging at Brighton, or a little entresol on the Boulevard, to 
the solitary ancestral palace in a park barred round with snow? We 
were as glad to get out of Newcome as out of a prison. My wife and 
our hostess skipped into the carriage, and began to talk freely as the 
lodge-gates closed after us. W ould we be lords of such a place under 
the penalty of living in it? We agreed that the little angle of earth 
called Fairoaks was dearer to us than the clumsy Newcome pile of 
Tudor masonry. The house had been fitted up in the time of 
G-eorge IV. and the quasi-Gothic revival. We were made to pass 
through Gothic dining-rooms, where there was now no hospitality, — 


THE NEWCOMES 


599 

Gothic drawing-rooms shrouded in brown hollands, to one little room 
at the end of the dusky suite, where Lady Clara sat alone, or in the 
company of the nurses and children. The blank gloom of the place 
had fallen upon the poor lady. Even when my wife talked about 
children (good-natured Madame de Montcontour vaunting ours as a 
prodigy) Lady Clara did not brighten up. Her pair of young ones 
was exhibited and withdrawn. A something weighed upon the 
woman. We talked about Ethel’s marriage. She said it was fixed 
for the new year, she believed. She did not know whether Glenlivat 
had been very handsomely fitted up. She had not seen Lord Farin- 
tosh’s house in London. Sir Barnes came down once — twice — of a 
Saturday sometimes, for three or four days to hunt, to amuse him- 
self, as all men do, she supposed. She did not know when he was 
coming again. She rang languidly when we rose to take leave, and 
sank back on her sofa, where lay a heap of French novels. “ She 
has chosen some pretty books,” says Paul, as we drove through 
the sombre avenues through the grey park, mists lying about the 
melancholy ornamental waters, dingy herds of huddled sheep speck- 
ling the grass here and there ; no smoke rising up from the great 
stacks of chimneys of the building we were leaving behind us, save 
one little feeble thread of white which we knew came from the fire 
by which the lonely mistress of Newcome was seated. “Ouf!” 
cries Florae, playing his whip, as the lodge-gates closed on us, and 
his team of horses rattled merrily along the road, “what a blessing 
it is to be out of that vault of a place ! There is something fatal in 
this house — in this woman. One smells misfortune there.” 

The hotel which our friend Florae patronised on occasion of his 
visits to Newcome was the “ King’s Arms,” and it happened one 
day, as we entered that place of entertainment in company, that a 
visitor of the house was issuing through the hall, to whom Florae 
seemed as if he would administer one of his customary embraces, 
and to whom the Prince called out “Jack,” with great warmth and 
kindness as he ran towards the stranger. 

Jack did not appear to be particularly well pleased on beholding 
us ; he rather retreated from before the Frenchman’s advances. 

“My dear Jack, my good, my brave ’Ighgate ! I am delighted 
to see you ! ” Florae continues, regardless of the stranger’s recep- 
tion, or of the landlord’s looks towards us, who was bowing the 
Prince into his very best room. 

“How do you do, Monsieur de Florae?” growls the new-comer 
surlily ; and was for moving on after this brief salutation ; but 
having a second thought seemingly, turned back and followed Florae 
into the apartment whither our host conducted us. A la bonne 
heure ! Florae renewed his cordial greetings to Lord Highgate. 


600 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ I knew not, mon bon, what fly had stung you,” says he to my 
Lord. The landlord, rubbing his hands, smirking and bowing, was 
anxious to know whether the Prince would take anything after his 
drive. As the Prince’s attendant and friend, the lustre of his recep- 
tion partially illuminated me. When the chief was not by, I was 
treated with great attention (mingled with a certain degree of fami- 
liarity) by my landlord. 

Lord Highgate waited until Mr. Taplow was out of the room ; 
and then said to Florae, “ Don’t call me by my name here, please, 
Florae, I am here incog.” 

“ Plait-il,” asks Florae, “where is incog. 1 ?” He laughed when 
the word was interpreted to him. Lord Highgate had turned to 
me. “ There was no rudeness, you understand, intended, Mr. Pen- 
dennis, but I am down here on some business, and don’t care to 
wear the handle to my name. Fellows work it so, don’t you under- 
stand? never leave you at rest in a country town — that sort of 
thing. Heard of our friend Clive lately ? ” 

“Whether you ’ave ’andle or no ’andle, Jack, you are always 
the bien-venu to me. What is thy affair? Old monster! I 
wager . . . .” 

“No, no! No such nonsense,” says Jack, rather eagerly. “I 
give you my honour, I — I want to — to raise a sum of money — that 
is, to invest some in a speculation down here — deuced good the 
speculations down here ; and, by the way, if the landlord asks you, 
I’m Mr. Harris— I’m a civil engineer — I’m waiting for the arrival 
of the Canada at Liverpool from America, and very uneasy about 
my brother who is on board.” 

“ What does he recount to us there ? Keep these stories for 
the landlord, Jack ; to us ’tis not the pain to lie. My good Mr. 
Harris, why have we not seen you at Rosebury? The Princess 
will scold me if you do not come ; and you must bring your dear 
brother when he arrive too. Do you hear?” The last part of 
this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow’s benefit, who had re- 
entered the “ George ” bearing a tray of wine and biscuit. 

The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently 
to look at a horse which was waiting the former’s inspection in the 
stable-yard of the hotel. The landlord took advantage of his 
business to hear a bell which never was rung, and to ask me 
questions about the guest who had been staying at his house for 
a week past. Did I know that party ? Mr. Pendennis said, “Yes, 
he knew that party.” 

“ Most respectable party, I have no doubt ? ” continues Boniface. 

“ Do you suppose the Prince of Montcontour knows any but 
respectable parties?” asks Mr. Pendennis — a query of which the 


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601 


force was so great as to discomfit and silence our landlord, who 
retreated to ask questions concerning Mr. Harris of Florae’s grooms. 

What was Highgate’s business here ] Was it mine to know ] 
I might have suspicions, but should I entertain them, or communi- 
cate them, and had I not best keep them to myself] I exchanged 
not a word on the subject of Highgate with Florae, as we drove 
home ; though from the way in which we looked at one another, 
each saw that the other was acquainted with that unhappy gentle- 
man’s secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse d’lvry 
as we trotted on ; and then of English manners by way of contrast, 
of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, &c. &c. “You are a droll 
nation ! ” says Florae. “ To make love well, you must absolutely 
have a chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of 
this kind made themselves on the grand route, what armies of 
postillions we should need ! ” 

I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, 
guilt, children dishonoured, homes deserted, — ruin for all the actors 
and victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturb- 
ance when we reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and 
charged me with it at night, when we sat alone by our dressing- 
room fire, and had taken leave of our kind entertainers. Then, 
under her cross-examination, I own that I told what I had seen — 
Lord Highgate, under a feigned name, staying at Newcome. It 
might be nothing. “ Nothing ! Gracious heavens ! Could not this 
crime and misery be stopped ] ” “It might be too late,” Laura’s 
husband said sadly, bending down his head into the fire. 

She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged 
where pious women ever will betake themselves in moments of 
doubt, of grief, of pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever 
other trial. They have but to will, and as it were an invisible 
temple rises round them ; their hearts can kneel down there ; and 
they have an audience of the great, the merciful, untiring Counsellor 
and Consoler. She would not have been frightened at Death near 
at hand. I have known her to tend the poor round about us, or to 
bear pain — not her own merely, but even her children’s and mine, 
with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But the idea of 
this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for it — quite 
overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night ; and rose 
quite haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived 
her of rest. 

She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that 
morning, and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names 
of maternal endearment. “ Would I leave you, my darling — could 
I ever, ever, ever quit you, my blessing and treasure ! ” The uncon- 


602 


THE NEWCOMES 


scious little thing, hugged to his mother’s bosom, and scared at her 
tones and tragic face, clung frightened and weeping round Laura’s 
neck. Would you ask what the husband’s feelings were as he 
looked at that sweet love, that sublime tenderness, that pure Saint 
blessing his life. Of all the gifts of Heaven to us below that felicity 
is the sum and the chief. I tremble as I hold it lest I should lose 
it, and be left alone in the blank world without it. 

Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony- 
carriage, and said she was bent on a private visit. She took her 
baby and nurse with her. She refused our company, and would 
not even say whither she was bound until she had passed the lodge- 
gate. I may have suspected what the object was of her journey. 
Florae and I did not talk of it. We rode out to meet the hounds 
of a cheery winter morning : on another day I might have been 
amused with my host — the splendour of his raiment, the neatness 
of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting-boots ; the cheers, shouts, 
salutations, to dog and man ; the oaths and outcries of this Nimrod, 
who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack too — 
but on this morning I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting, 
and came away early from the hunting-field, and found my wife 
already returned to Rosebury. 

Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did 
not know why, indeed. She scarce knew what she should say 
when she arrived — how she could say what she had in her 
mind. “I hoped, Arthur, that I should have something — some- 
thing told me to say,” whispered Laura, with her head on my 
shoulder ; “ and as I lay awake last night thinking of her, prayed 
— that is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor 
lady. Do you know I think she has hardly ever heard a kind 
word 1 She said so ; she was very much affected after we had 
talked together a little. 

“ At first she was very indifferent ; cold and haughty in her 
manner; asked what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I 
would go in, though at the lodge they told me her Ladyship was 
unwell, and they thought received no company. I said I wanted 
to show our boy to her — that the children ought to be acquainted 
— I don’t know what I said. She seemed more and more surprised 
— then all of a sudden — I don’t know how — I said, ‘ Lady Clara, 
I have had a dream about you and your children, and I was so 
frightened that I came over to you to speak about it.’ And I had 
the dream, Pen ; it came to me absolutely as I was speaking to her. 

“ She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. 
‘ My dear,’ I said, ‘ I dreamed that I saw you happy with those 
children.’ 


THE NEWCOMES 603 

“ ‘ Happy ! 5 says she — the three were playing in the conserva- 
tory, into which her sitting-room opens. 

“ ‘ And that a bad spirit came and tore them from you ; and 
drove you out into the darkness ; and I saw you wandering about 
quite lonely and wretched, and looking back into the garden where 
the children were playing. And you asked and implored to see 
them ; and the Keeper at the gate said “No, never.” And then — 
then I thought they passed by you, and they did not know you.’ 

“ * Ah,’ said Lady Clara. 

“ ‘ And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it 
was my child who was separated from me, and who would not 
know me : and oh, what a pang that was ! Fancy that. Let us 
pray God that it was only a dream. And worse than that, when 
you, when I implored to come to the child, and the man said “No, 
never,” I thought there came a spirit — an angel that fetched the 
child to heaven, and you said, “Let me come too; oh, let me 
come too, I am so miserable.” And the angel said, “No, never, 
never.” 5 

“By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. ‘What do 
you mean ? 5 she asked of me,” Laura continued. 

“ ‘ 0 dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and Him who 
calls them to Him, go you with them. Never, never part from 
them ! Cling to His knees, and take shelter there. 5 I took her 
hands, and I said more to her in this way, Arthur, that I need not, 
that I ought not to speak again. But she was touched at length 
when I kissed her ; and she said I was very kind to her, and no 
one had ever been so, and that she was quite alone in the world and 
had no friend to fly to ; and would I go and stay with her ? and I 
said ‘ Yes ; ' and we must go, my dear. And I think you should 
see that person at Newcome — see him, and warn him,” cried Laura, 
warming as she spoke, “ and pray God to enlighten and strengthen 
him, and to keep him from this temptation, and implore him to 
leave this poor, weak, frightened, trembling creature ; if he has the 
heart of a gentleman and the courage of a man, he will, I know 
he will.” 

“I think he would, my dearest,” I said, “if he but heard the 
petitioner.” Laura’s cheeks were blushing, her eyes brightened, 
her voice rang with a sweet pathos of love that vibrates through 
my whole being sometimes. It seems to me as if evil must give 
way, and bad thoughts retire before that purest creature. 

“Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing?” 
my wife continued. “ She perishes in that solitude. Her husband 
prevents her, I think — and — oh — I know enough of him to know 
what his life is. I shudder, Arthur, to see you take the hand of 


604 THE NEWCOMES 

that wicked, selfish man. You must break with him, do you hear, 
sir 1 ” 

“ Before or after going to stay at his house, my love?” asks Mr. 
Pendennis. 

“ Poor thing ! she lighted up at the idea of any one coming. 
She ran and showed me the rooms we were to have. It will be 
very stupid ; and you don’t like that. But you can write your 
book, and still hunt and shoot with our friends here. And Lady 
Ann Newcome must be made to come back again. Sir Barnes 
quarrelled with his mother and drove her out of the house on her 
last visit — think of that ! The servants here know it. Martha 
brought me the whole story from the housekeeper’s room. This 
Sir Barnes Newcome is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad 
I loathed him from the very first moment I saw him.” 

“ And into this ogre’s den you propose to put me and my family, 
madam ! ” says the husband. “ Indeed, where won’t I go if you 
order me 'l Oh, who will pack my portmanteau 1 ” 

Florae and the Princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, 
we announced our resolution to go away — and to our neighbour’s 
at Newcome'? that was more extraordinary. “Que diable goest 
thou to do in this gallery ? ” asks our host as we sat alone over 
our wine. 

But Laura’s intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have 
a fulfilment, for on this same evening, as we sat at our dessert, 
comes a messenger from Newcome with a note for my wife from 
the lady there. 

“ Dearest , kindest Mrs. Pendennis,” Lady Clara wrote, with 
many italics, and evidently in much distress of mind, — “ Your visit 
is not to be. I spoke about it to Sir B., who arrived this afternoon , 
and who has already begun to treat me in his usual way. Oh, 
I am so unhappy ! Pray, pray, do not be angry at this rudeness — 
though indeed it is only a kindness to keep you from this wretched 
place ! I feel as if I cannot bear this much longer. But, whatever 
happens, I shall always remember your goodness, your beautiful 
goodness and kindness ; and shall worship you as an angel deserves 
to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a friend earlier ! But 
alas ! I have none — only his odious family thrust upon me for 
companions to the wretched , lonely C. N. 

“ P.S . — He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised 
if you get another note from me in the morning, written in a cere- 
monious style , and regretting that we cannot have the pleasure 
of receiving Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis for the present at Newcome. 

“P.S. — The hypocrite ! ” 


THE NEWCOMES 605 

This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave 
it to me as she passed out of the room with the other ladies. 

I told Florae that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that 
we would remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. 
The kind fellow was only too glad to keep us. “ My wife would 
die without Bebi,” he said. “ She becomes quite dangerous about 
Bdbi.” It was gratifying that the good old lady was not to be parted 
as yet from the innocent object of her love. 

My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes 
and his wife were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole 
county ; one side brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct 
elsewhere, and said that he was so bad that honest people should not 
know him. The other party laid the blame upon her, and declared 
that Lady Clara was a languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; 
always crying out of season ; who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes 
for his money, and who as certainly had had an attachment else- 
where. Yes, the accusations were true on both sides. A bad, 
selfish husband had married a woman for her rank ; a weak, thought- 
less girl had been sold to a man for his money ; and the union, which 
might have ended in a comfortable indifference, had taken an ill 
turn and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations, 
bitter tears shed in private, husband’s curses and maledictions, and 
open scenes of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the 
world to sneer at. We arrange such matches every day; we sell 
or buy beauty, or rank, or wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in 
churches with sacramental services, in which the parties engaged 
call upon Heaven to witness their vows — we know them to be 
lies, and we seal them with God’s name. “ I, Barnes, promise to 
take you, Clara, to love and honour till death do us part.” “ I, 
Clara, promise to take you, Barnes,” &c. &c. Who has not heard 
the ancient words ; and how many of us have uttered them, knowing 
them to be untrue : and is there a bishop on the bench that has not 
amen’d the humbug in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over 
the kneeling pair of perjurers ? 

“ Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome’s return ? ” Florae asked, 
when I acquainted him with this intelligence. “ Ce scdldrat de 
Highgate — Va ! ” 

“ Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here ? ” I thought 
within myself, admiring my wife’s faithfulness and simplicity, and 
trying to believe with that pure and guileless creature that it was 
not yet too late to save the unhappy Lady Clara. 

“ Mr. Harris had best be warned,” I said to Florae ; “ will you 
write him a word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?” 

At first Florae said, “ Parbleu, no ! ” the affair was none of hie 


606 


THE NEWCOMES 


he attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara’s marriage. 
He had even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, 
when scenes enough tragic, enough comical, ma foi, had taken place 
a propos of this affair. Why should he meddle with it now 1 

“ Children dishonoured,” said I, “ honest families made miser- 
able ; for Heaven’s sake, Florae, let us stay this catastrophe if we 
can.” I spoke with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this 
calamity if possible, and very strongly moved by the tale which I 
had heard only just before dinner from that innocent creature, whose 
pure heart had already prompted her to plead the cause of right and 
truth, and to try and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling 
on the verge of ruin. 

“ If you will not write to him,” said I, in some heat ; “ if your 
grooms don’t like to go out of a night ” (this was one of the objec- 
tions which Florae had raised), “ I will walk.” We were talking 
over the affair rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated 
to their sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave, 
whom our hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, 
and before whom I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject 
so dangerous. 

“ Parbleu, what virtue, my friend ! what a Joseph ! ” cries 
Florae, puffing his cigar. “ One sees well that your wife had made 
you the sermon. My poor Pendennis ! You are hen-pecked, my 
pauvre bon ! You become the husband model. It is true my 
mother writes that thy wife is an angel ! ” 

“ I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do 
right,” I said ; and would indeed at that woman’s request have gone 
out upon the errand, but that we here found another messenger. 
On days when dinner-parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary 
waiters used to attend from Newcome, whom the landlord of the 
“ King’s Arms ” was accustomed to supply ; indeed, it was to secure 
these, and make other necessary arrangements, respecting fish, game, 
&c., that the Prince de Montcontour had ridden over to Newcome 
on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris, before 
the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above con- 
versation a servant enters, and says, “ My Lord, Jenkins and the 
other man is going back to Newcome in their cart, and is there 
anything wanted ? ” 

“ It is the Heaven which sends him,” says Florae, turning round 
to me with a laugh. “ Make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert ; 
I have to write to a gentleman at the ‘King’s Arms.’” And so 
saying, Florae wrote a line, which he showed me, and having sealed 
the note, directed it to Mr. Harris at the “King’s Arms.” The 
cart, the note, and the assistant waiters departed on their way to 


THE NEWCOMES 


607 


Newcome. Florae bade me go to rest with a clear conscience. In 
truth, the warning was better given in that way than any other, 
and a word from Florae was more likely to be effectual than an 
expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps, 
except at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in all the 
difficult circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take. 

Mr. Jenkins’s horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as 
gentlemen’s horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have 
been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember 
in my bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I 
had had a good dinner ; the champagne used to communicate itself 
to them somehow, and the claret get into their heels. Before mid- 
night the letter for Mr. Harris was in Mr. Harris’s hands in the 
“ King’s Arms.” 

It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some 
of the jolly fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the 
auctioneer, Tom Potts the talented reporter, now editor of the 
Independent , Vidler the apothecary, and other gentlemen, were 
members 

When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at 
an early stage of this history, long before Clive Newcome’s fine 
mustachio had grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm 
then, he is near ten years older now ; he has had various assistants, 
of course, and one of them of late years had become his partner, 
though the firm continues to be known by Vidler’s ancient and 
respectable name. A jovial fellow was this partner — a capital con- 
vivial member of the Jolly Britons, where he used to sit very late, 
so as to be in readiness for any night-work that might come in. 

So the Britons were all sitting smoking, drinking, and making 
merry, in the Boscawen Room, when Jenkins enters with a note, 
which he straightway delivers to Mr. Vidler’s partner. “From 
Rosebury'? The Princess ill again, I suppose,” says the surgeon, 
not sorry to let the company know that he attends her. “ I wish 
the old girl would be ill in the day-time. Confound it,” says he, 
“what’s this 1 ?” — and he reads out, “‘Sir Newcome est de retour. 
Bon voyage, mon ami. F.’ What does this mean ? ” 

“ I thought you knew French, Jack Harris,” says Tom Potts ; 
“ you’re always bothering us with your French songs.” 

“ Of course I know French,” says the other ; “ but what’s the 
meaning of this 1 ” 

“ Screwcome came back by the five o’clock train. I was in it, 
and his royal highness would scarcely speak to me. Took Brown’s 
fly from the station. Brown won’t enrich his family much by the 
operation,” says Mr. Potts. 


608 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ But what do I care 1 ” cries Jack Harris ; “we don’t attend 
him, and we don’t lose much by that. Howell attends him, ever 
since Vidler and he had that row.” 

“ Hulloli ! I say it’s a mistake,” cries Mr. Taplow, smoking in 
his chair. “ This letter is for the party in the Benbow. The gent 
which the Prince spoke to him, and called him Jack the other day 
when he was here. Here’s a nice business, and the seal broke, and 
all. Is the Benbow party gone to bed 1 ? John, you must carry 
him in this here note.” John, quite innocent of the note and its 
contents, for he that moment had entered the club-room with Mr. 
Potts’s supper, took the note to the Benbow, from which he presently 
returned to his master with a very scared countenance. He said 
the gent in the Benbow was a most harbitrary gent. He had 
almost choked John after reading the letter, and John wouldn’t 
stand it ; and when John said he supposed that Mr. Harris in the 
Boscawen — that Mr. Jack Harris had opened the letter, the other 
gent cursed and swore awful. 

“ Potts,” said Taplow, who was only too communicative on 
some occasions after he had imbibed too much of his own brandy- 
and-water, “it’s my belief that that party’s name is no more Harris 
than mine is. I have sent his linen to the wash, and there was 
two white pocket-handkerchiefs with H. and a coronet.” 

On the next day we drove over to Newcome, hoping perhaps to 
find that Lord Highgate had taken the warning sent to him and 
quitted the place. But we were disappointed. He was walking in 
front of the hotel, where a thousand persons might see him as well 
as ourselves. 

We entered into his private apartment with him, and there 
expostulated upon his appearance in the public street, where Barnes 
Newcome or any passer-by might recognise him. He then told us 
of the mishap which had befallen Florae’s letter on the previous 
night. 

“ I can’t go away now, whatever might have happened pre- 
viously ; by this time that villain knows that I am here. If I go, 
he will say I was afraid of him, and ran away. Oh, how I wish 
he would come and find me.” He broke out with a savage 
laugh. 

“It is best to run away,” one of us interposed sadly. 

“ Pendennis,” he said with a tone of great softness, “ your wife 
is a good woman. God bless her. God bless her for all she has 
said and done — would have done, if that villain had let her. Do 
you know the poor thing hasn’t a single friend in the world, not 
one, — except me, and that girl they are selling to Farintosh, and 
who does not count for much ? He has driven away all her friends 


THE NEW COMES 


609 

from her : one and all turn upon her. Her relations of course : 
when did they ever fail to hit a poor fellow or a poor girl when she 
was down ? The poor angel ! The mother who sold her comes 
and preaches at her ; Kew’s wife turns up her little cursed nose and 
scorns her ; Rooster, forsooth, must ride the high horse, now he is 
married and lives at Chanticlere, and give her warning to avoid my 
company or his ! Do you know the only friend she ever had was 
that old woman with the stick — old Kew ; the old witch whom 
they buried four months ago after nobbling her money for the 
beauty of the family ? She used to protect her — that old woman ; 
Heaven bless her for it wherever she is now, the old hag — a good 
wmrd won’t do her any harm. Ha ! ha ! ” His laughter was cruel 
to hear. 

“Why did I come down 1 ?” he continued in reply to our sad 
queries. “ Why did I come down, do you ask ? Because she was 
wretched, and sent for me. Because if I was at the end of the 
world, and she was to say, ‘ Jack, come ! ’ I’d come.” 

“ And if she bade you go ? ” asked his friends. 

“ I would go ; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into 
the sea, do you think I would not do it ? But I go ; and when she 
is alone with him, do you know what he does? He strikes her. 
Strikes that poor little thing ! He has owned to it. She fled from 
him and sheltered with the old woman who’s dead. He may be 
doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands with him? that’s 
humiliation sufficient, isn’t it? But she wished it; and I’d black 
his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he wanted to 
keep my money in his confounded bank ; and because he knew he 
might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to 
shake hands with me — me, whom he hates worse than a thousand 
devils — and quite right too. Why isn’t there a place where we 
can go and meet, like man to man, and have it over ? If I had a 
ball through my brains I shouldn’t mind, I tell you. I’ve a mind to 
do it for myself, Pendennis. You don’t understand me, Viscount.” 

“ II est vrai,” said Florae, with a shrug, “ I comprehend neither 
the suicide nor the chaise-de-poste. What will you? I am not 
yet enough English, my friend. We make marriages of convenance 
in our country, que diable, and what follows follows ; but no scandal 
afterwards. Do not adopt our institutions k demi, my friend. 
Vous ne me comprenez pas non plus, mon pauvre Jack ! ” 

“ There is one way still, I think,” said the third of the speakers 
in this scene. “ Let Lord Highgate come to Rosebury in his own 
name, leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Barnes New- 
come wants you, he can seek you there. If you will go, as go you 
should, and God speed you, you can go, and in your own name too.” 

8 2 q 


6io 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Parbleu, c’est 9a,” cries Florae, “ he speaks like a book — the 
Romancier ! ” I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman 
might plead with him, and touch that manly, not disloyal heart 
now trembling on the awful balance between evil and good. 

“ Allons ! let us make to come the drague ! ” cries Florae. 
“ Jack, thou returnest with us, my friend ! Madame Pendennis, 
an angel, my friend, a quakre the most charming, shall roucoule to 
thee the sweetest sermons. My wife shall tend thee like a mother 
— a grandmother. Go make thy packet ! ” 

Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved seemingly. 
He shook our hands, he said he should never forget our kindness, 
never ! In truth the didactic part of our conversation was carried 
on at much greater length than as here noted down : and he would 
come that evening, but not with us, thank you ; he had a particular 
engagement — some letters he must write. Those done, he would 
not fail us, and would be at Rosebury by dinner-time. 


CHAPTER LVIII 


“ ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE ” 

T HE Fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which 
Lord Highgate’s friends had devised for Lady Clara’s rescue 
or respite. He was bent upon one more interview with the 
unfortunate lady ; and in that meeting the future destiny of their 
luckless lives was decided. On the morning of his return home, 
Barnes Newcome had information that Lord Highgate, under a 
feigned name, had been staying in the neighbourhood of his house, 
and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady Clara. She 
may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had 
taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, 
and, far from making preparations for her own departure, had been 
engaged in getting the house ready for the reception of members 
of the family, whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to 
follow his own. Ethel and Lady Ann, and some of the children, 
w r ere coming. Lord Farintosh’s mother and sisters were to follow. 
It was to be a reunion previous to the marriage which was closer 
to unite the two families. Lady Clara said “ yes ” to her husband’s 
orders ; rose mechanically to obey his wishes and arrange for the 
reception of the guests ; and spoke tremblingly to the housekeeper 
as her husband jibed at her. The little ones had been consigned 
to bed early, and before Sir Barnes’s arrival. He did not think 
fit to see them in their sleep ; nor did their mother. She did not 
know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge of their 
nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps, had 
she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched panic- 
stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to 
pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the 
trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right’s side. But 
the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted 
her with his accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and brutal 
insult. On a future day he never dared to call a servant of his 
household to testify to his treatment of her, though many were 
ready to attend to prove his cruelty and her terror. On that very 
last night, Lady Clara’s maid, a country-girl from her father’s house 


612 


THE NEWCOMES 


at Chanticlere, told Sir Barnes, in the midst of a conjugal dispute, 
that her lady might bear his conduct, but she could not, and that 
she would no longer live under the roof of such a brute. The 
girl’s interference was not likely to benefit her mistress much : the 
wretched Lady Clara passed the last night under the roof of her 
husband and children, unattended save by this poor domestic who 
was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then 
in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum, her 
maid carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants’ quarters ; 
and half-a-dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes 
as he sat over his breakfast the next morning — in his ancestral 
hall — surrounded by the portraits of his august forefathers — in his 
happy home. 

Their mutiny, of course, did not add to their master’s good- 
humour ; and his letters brought him news which increased Barnes’s 
fury. A messenger arrived with a letter from his man of business 
at Newcome, upon the receipt of which he started up with such 
an execration as frightened the servant waiting on him, and letter 
in hand he ran to Lady Clara’s sitting-room. Her Ladyship was 
up. Sir Barnes breakfasted rather late on the first morning after 
an arrival at Newcome. He had to look over the bailiffs books, 
and to look about him round the park and grounds ; to curse the 
gardeners; to damn the stable and kennel grooms; to yell at the 
woodman for clearing not enough or too much ; to rail at the poor 
old workpeople brooming away the fallen leaves, &c. So Lady 
Clara was up and dressed when her husband went to her room, 
which lay at the end of the house, as we have said, the last of a 
suite of ancestral halls. 

The mutinous servant heard a high voice and curses within ; 
then Lady Clara’s screams ; then Sir Barnes Newcome burst out of 
the room, locking the door, and taking the key with him, and saluting 
with more curses James, the mutineer, over whom his master ran. 

“Curse your wife, and don’t curse me, Sir Barnes Newcome !” 
said James, the mutineer; and knocked down a hand which the 
infuriated Baronet raised against him, with an arm that was thrice 
as strong as Barnes’s own. This man and maid followed their 
mistress in the sad journey upon which she was bent. They treated 
her with unalterable respect. They never could be got to see that 
her conduct was wrong When Barnes’s counsel subsequently tried 
to impugn their testimony, they dared him, and hurt the plaintiffs 
case very much. For the balance had weighed over ; and it was 
Barnes himself who caused what now ensued, and what we learned 
in a very few hours afterwards from Newcome, where it was the 
talk of the whole neighbourhood. 






SIR BARNES NEWCOME 


IN TROUBLE 




THE NEWCOMES 


613 


Florae and I, as yet ignorant of all that was occurring, met 
Barnes near his own lodge-gate riding in the direction of Newcome, 
as we were ourselves returning to Rosebury. The Prince de Mont- 
contour, who was driving, affably saluted the Baronet, who gave us 
a scowling recognition, and rode on, his groom behind him. “ The 
figure of this gar^on,” says Florae, as our acquaintance passed, “ is 
not agreeable. Of pale, he has become livid. I hope these two 
men will not meet, or evil will come ! ” Evil to Barnes there might 
be, Florae’s companion thought, who knew the previous little affairs 
between Barnes and his uncle and cousin ; and that Lord Highgate 
was quite able to take care of himself. 

In half-an-hour after Florae spoke, that meeting between Barnes 
and Highgate actually had taken place — in the open square of New- 
come, within four doors of the “ King’s Arms ” inn, close to which 
lives Sir Barnes Newcome’s man of business ; and before which Mr. 
Harris, as he was called, was walking, and waiting till a carriage 
which he had ordered came round from the inn yard. As Sir 
Barnes Newcome rode into the place many people touched their 
hats to him, however little they loved him. He was bowing and 
smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw Belsize. 

He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the 
pavement, and it may have been rage and fury, or accident and 
nervousness merely, but at this instant Barnes Newcome, looking 
towards Lord Highgate, shook his whip. 

“ You cowardly villain ! ” said the other, springing forward. 
“ I was going to your house.” 

“How dare you, sir'?” cries Sir Barnes, still holding up that 
unlucky cane, “ how dare you to — to ” 

“ Dare, you scoundrel ! ” said Belsize. “ Is that the cane you 
strike your wife with, you ruffian 1 ?” Belsize seized and tore him 
out of the saddle, flinging him screaming down on the pavement. 
The horse, rearing and making way for himself, galloped down the 
clattering street; a hundred people were round Sir Barnes in a 
moment. 

The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very 
juncture. Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating, 
threatening, who pressed about him, he shouldered his way. Mr. 
Taplow, aghast, was one of the hundred spectators of the scene. 

“I am Lord Highgate,” said Barnes’s adversary. “If Sir 
Barnes Newcome wants me, tell him I will send him word where 
he may hear of me.” And getting into the carriage, he told the 
driver to go “ to the usual place.” 

Imagine the hubbub in the town, the conclaves at the inns, the 
talks in the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory 


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614 

people, the paragraphs in the Newcome papers, tlie bustle of 
surgeons and lawyers, after this event. Crowds gathered at the 
“ King’s Arms,” and waited round Mr. Speers the lawyer’s house, 
into which Sir Barnes was carried. In vain policemen told them 
to move on ; fresh groups gathered after the seceders. On the next 
day, when Barnes Newcome, who was not much hurt, had a fly to 
go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage window, 
and, with a curse, said “ Serve you right, you villain.” It was the 
man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted 
years before — whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates — 
a leader in the chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes 
Newcome. 

Barnes’s mother and sister Ethel had reached Newcome shortly 
before the return of the master of the house. The people there 
were in disturbance. Lady Ann and Miss Newcome came out with 
pallid looks to greet him. He laughed and reassured them about 
his accident : indeed his hurt had been trifling ; he had been bled 
by the surgeon, a little jarred by the fall from his horse ; but there 
was no sort of danger. Still their pale and doubtful looks con- 
tinued. What caused them'? In the open day, with a servant 
attending her, Lady Clara Newcome had left her husband’s house; 
and a letter was forwarded to him that same evening from my Lord 
Highgate, informing Sir Barnes Newcome that Lady Clara Pulleyn 
could bear his tyranny no longer, and had left his roof ; that Lord 
Highgate proposed to leave England almost immediately, but would 
remain long enough to afford Sir Barnes Newcome the opportunity 
for an interview, in case he should be disposed to demand one ; and 
a friend (of Lord Highgate’s late regiment) was named who would 
receive letters and act in any way necessary for his Lordship. 

The debates of the House of Lords must tell what followed 
afterwards in the dreary history of Lady Clara Pulleyn. The pro- 
ceedings in the Newcome Divorce Bill filled the usual number of 
columns in the papers, — especially the Sunday papers. The 
witnesses were examined by learned peers whose business — nay, 
pleasure — it seems to be to enter into such matters ; and, for the 
ends of justice and morality, doubtless, the whole story of Barnes 
Newcome’s household was told to the British public. In the 
previous trial in the Court of Queen’s Bench, how grandly Serjeant 
Rowland stood up for the rights of British husbands ! with what 
pathos he depicted the conjugal paradise : the innocent children 
prattling round their happy parents; the serpent, the destroyer, 
entering into that Belgravian Eden ; the wretched and deserted 
husband alone by his desecrated hearth, and calling on his country 
for redress ! Rowland wept freely during his noble harangue. At 


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not a shilling under twenty thousand pounds would he estimate the 
cost of his client’s injuries. The jury was very much affected ; the 
evening papers gave Rowland’s address in extenso, with some pretty 
sharp raps at the aristocracy in general. The Day, the principal 
morning journal of that period, came out with a leading article the 
next morning, in which every party concerned and every institution 
was knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the, ruin of the 
monarchy (with a retrospective view of the well-known case of 
“ Gyges and Candaules ”), the monstrosity of the crime, and the 
absurdity of the tribunal and the punishment, were all set forth in 
the terrible leading article of the Day. 

But when, on the next day, Serjeant Rowland was requested 
to call witnesses to prove that connubial happiness which he had 
depicted so pathetically, he had none at hand. 

Oliver, Q.C., now had his innings. A man, a husband, and a 
father, Mr. Oliver could not attempt to defend the conduct of his 
unfortunate client; but if there could be any excuse for such 
conduct, that excuse he was free to confess the plaintiff had afforded, 
whose cruelty and neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready 
to prove — neglect so outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he 
wondered the plaintiff had not been better advised than to bring 
this trial, with all its degrading particulars to a public issue. On 
the very day when the ill-omened marriage took place, another 
victim of cruelty had interposed as vainly — as vainly as Serjeant 
Rowland himself interposed in court to prevent this case being 
made known — and with piteous outcries, in the name of outraged 
neglected woman, of castaway children pleading in vain for bread, 
had besought the bride to pause, and the bridegroom to look upon 
the wretched beings who owed him life. Why had not Lady Clara 
Pulleyn’s friends listened to that appeal ? And so on, and so on, 
between Rowland and Oliver the battle waged fiercely that day. 
Many witnesses were mauled and slain. Out of that combat scarce 
anybody came well, except the two principal champions, Rowland, 
Serjeant, and Oliver, Q.C. The whole country looked on and heard 
the wretched story, not only of Barnes’s fault and Highgate’s fault, 
but of the private peccadilloes of their suborned footmen and con- 
spiring housemaids. Mr. Justice C. Sawyer charged the jury at 
great length — those men were respectable men and fathers of 
families themselves — of course they dealt full measure to Lord 
Highgate for his delinquencies ; consoled the injured husband with 
immense damages, and left him free to pursue the further steps for 
releasing himself altogether from the tie, which had been bound 
with affecting Episcopal benediction at St. George’s, Hanover 
Square. 


616 


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So Lady Clara flies from the custody of her tyrant, but to what 
a rescue 1 ? The very man who loves her, and gives her asylum, 
pities and deplores her. She scarce dares to look out of the 
windows of her new home upon the world, lest it should know and 
reproach her. All the sisterhood of friendship is cut off from her. 
If she dares to go abroad she feels the sneer of the world as she 
goes through it ; and knows that malice and scorn whisper behind 
her. People, as criminal but undiscovered, make room for her, as 
if her touch were pollution. She knows she has darkened the lot 
and made wretched the home of the man whom she loves best ; that 
his friends who see her, treat her with but a doubtful respect ; and 
the domestics who attend her, with a suspicious obedience. In the 
country lanes, or the streets of the county town, neighbours look 
aside as the carriage passes in which she sits splendid and lonely. 
Rough hunting companions of her husband’s come to her table : 
he is driven perforce to the company of flatterers and men of inferior 
sort ; his equals, at least in his own home, will not live with him. 
She would be kind, perhaps, and charitable to the cottagers round 
about her, but she fears to visit them lest they too should scorn her. 
The clergyman who distributes her charities, blushes and looks 
awkward on passing her in the village, if he should be walking 
with his wife or one of his children. Shall they go to the 
Continent, and set up a grand house at Paris or at Florence? 
There they can get society, but of what a sort ! Our acquaint- 
ances of Baden, — Madame Schlangenbad, and Madame de Cruche- 
cassde, and Madame d’lvry, and Messrs. Loder, and Punter, and 
Blackball, and Deuceace will come and dance, and flirt and quarrel, 
and gamble and feast round about her ; but what in common with 
such wild people has this poor, timid, shrinking soul ? Even these 
scorn her. The leers and laughter on those painted faces are quite 
unlike her own sad countenance. She has no reply to their wit. 
Their infernal gaiety scares her more than the solitude at home. 
Ho wonder that her husband does not like home, except for a 
short while in the hunting season. No wmnder that he is away 
all day ; how can he like a home which she has made so wretched ? 
In the midst of her sorrow, and doubt, and misery, a child comes 
to her : how she clings to it ! how her whole being, and hope, and 
passion centres itself on this feeble infant ! . . . but she no more 
belongs to our story : with the new name she has taken, the poor 
lady passes out of the history of the Newcomes. 

If Barnes Newcome’s children meet yonder solitary lady, do 
they know her? If her once-husband thinks upon the unhappy 
young creature whom his cruelty drove from him, does his con- 
science affect his sleep at night? Why should Sir Barnes New- 


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come’s conscience be more squeamish than his country’s, which has 
put money in his pocket for having trampled on the poor weak 
young thing, and scorned her, and driven her to ruin ? When the 
whole of the accounts of that wretched bankruptcy are brought up 
for final Audit, which of the unhappy partners shall be shown to 
be most guilty? Does the Right Reverend Prelate who did the 
benedictory business for Barnes and Clara his wife repent in secret? 
Do the parents who pressed the marriage, and the fine folks who 
signed the book, and ate the breakfast, and applauded the bride- 
groom’s speech, feel a little ashamed ? 0 Hymen Hymensee ! 

The bishops, beadles, clergy, pew-openers, and other officers of 
the temple dedicated to Heaven under the invocation of St. George, 
will officiate in the same place at scores and scores more of such 
marriages; and St. George of England may behold virgin after 
virgin offered up to the devouring monster, Mammon (with many 
most respectable female dragons looking on) — may see virgin after 
virgin given away, just as in the Soldan of Babylon’s time, but 
with never a champion to come to the rescue ! 


CHAPTER LIX 

IN WHICH ACHILLES LOSES B RISE IS 

A LTHOUGH the years of the Marquis of Farintosh were few, 
AA he had spent most of them in the habit of command ; 
^ and from his childhood upwards had been obeyed by all 
persons round about him. As an infant he had but to roar, and 
his mother and nurses were as much frightened as though he had 
been a Libyan lion. What he willed and ordered was law amongst 
his clan and family. During the period of his London and Parisian 
dissipations his poor mother did not venture to remonstrate with 
her young prodigal, but shut her eyes, not daring to open them on 
his wild courses. As for the friends of his person and house, many 
of whom were portly elderly gentlemen, their affection for the 
youug Marquis was so extreme that there was no company into 
which their fidelity would not lead them to follow him ; and you 
might see him dancing at Mabille with veteran aides-de-camp look- 
ing on, or disporting with opera-dancers at a Trois-Frkres banquet, 
which some old gentleman of his father’s age had taken the pains to 
order. If his Lordship Count Almaviva wants a friend to carry the 
lantern or to hold the ladder, do you suppose there are not many 
most respectable men in society who will act Figaro h When Farin- 
tosh thought fit, in the fulness of time and the blooming pride of 
manhood, to select a spouse, and to elevate a marchioness to his 
throne, no one dared gainsay him. When he called upon his mother 
and sisters, and their Ladyships’ hangers-on and attendants; upon 
his own particular kinsmen, led-captains, and toadies, to bow the 
knee and do homage to the woman whom he delighted to honour, 
those duteous subjects trembled and obeyed; in fact, he thought 
that the position of a Marchioness of Farintosh was, under heaven 
and before men, so splendid, that, had he elevated a beggar-maid 
to that sublime rank, the inferior world was bound to worship her. 

So my Lord’s lady-mother, and my Lord’s sisters, and his 
captains, and his players of billiards, and the toadies of his august 
person, all performed obeisance to his bride-elect, and never ques- 
tioned the will of the young chieftain. What were the private 
comments of the ladies of the family we had no means of knowing ; 


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619 

but it may naturally be supposed that his Lordship’s gentlemen-in- 
waiting, Captain Henchman, Jack Todhunter, and the rest, had 
many misgivings of their own respecting their patron’s change in 
life, and could not view without anxiety the advent of a mistress 
who might reign over him and them, who might possibly not like 
their company, and might exert her influence over her husband to 
oust these honest fellows from places in which they were very com- 
fortable. The jovial rogues had the run of my Lord’s kitchen, 
stables, cellars, and cigar-boxes. A new marchioness might hate 
hunting, smoking, jolly parties, and toad-eaters in general, or might 
bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind- 
hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, 
doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful 
looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the 
ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my Lord’s castles 
and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables — tables at 
which they may never have a knife and fork ; castles and houses 
of which the poor rogues may never be allowed to pass the doors. 

When, then, “ The Elopement in High Life,” which has been 
described in the previous pages, burst upon the town in the morning 
papers, I can fancy the agitation which the news occasioned in the 
faithful bosoms of the generous Todhunter and the attached Hench- 
man. My Lord was not in his own house as yet. He and his 
friends still lingered on in the little house in Mayfair, the dear little 
bachelor’s quarters, where they had enjoyed such good dinners, 
such good suppers, such rare doings, such a jolly time. I fancy 
Hench coming down to breakfast and reading the Morning Post. I 
imagine Tod dropping in from his bedroom over the way, and Hench 
handing the paper over to Tod, and the conversation which ensued 
between those worthy men. “ Elopement in High Life — excitement 
in N — come, and flight of Lady Cl — N — come, daughter of the 
late and sister of the present Earl of D-rking, with Lord H — gate ; 
personal rencontre between Lord H — gate and Sir B-nes N — come. 
Extraordinary disclosures.” I say, I can fancy Hench and Tod 
over this awful piece of news. 

“ Pretty news, ain’t it, Toddy 1 ” says Henchman, looking up 
from a Pdrigord pie, which the faithful creature is discussing. 

“Always expected it,” remarks the other. “Anybody who 
saw them together last season must have known it. The Chief 
himself spoke of it to me.” 

“It’ll cut him up awfully when he reads it. Is it in the 
Morning Post ? He has the Post in his bedroom. I know he has 
rung his bell : I heard it. Bowman, has his Lordship read his 
paper yet f ” 


620 


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Bowman, the valet, said, “ I believe you, he have read his 
paper. When he read it, he jumped out of bed and swore most 
awful. I cut as soon as I could,” continued Mr. Bowman, who was 
on familiar — nay, contemptuous terms with the other two gentlemen. 

“ Enough to make any man swear,” says Toddy to Henchman ; 
and both were alarmed in their noble souls, reflecting that their 
chieftain was now actually getting up and dressing himself ; that he 
would speedily, and in the course of nature, come downstairs ; and 
then, most probably, would begin swearing at them. 

The Most Noble Mungo Malcolm Angus was in an awful state 
of mind, when at length he appeared in the breakfast-room. “ Why 
the dash do you make a taproom of this 1 ” he cries. The trembling 
Henchman, who has begun to smoke — as he has done a hundred 
times before in this bachelor’s hall — flings his cigar into the fire. 

“ There you go — nothing like it ! Why don’t you fling some 
more in 1 You can get ’em at Hudson’s for five guineas a pound,” 
bursts out the youthful peer. 

“ I understand why you are out of sorts, old boy,” says Hench- 
man, stretching out his manly hand. A tear of compassion twinkled 
in his eyelid, and coursed down his mottled cheek. “ Cut away at 
old Frank, Farintosh, — a fellow who has been attached to you since 
before you could speak. It’s not when a fellow’s down and cut up, 
and riled — naturally riled — as you are, — I know you are, Marquis; 
it’s not then that I’m going to be angry with you. Pitch into old 
Frank Henchman — hit away, my young one.” And Frank put 
himself into an attitude as of one prepared to receive a pugilistic 
assault. He bared his breast, as it were, and showed his scars, and 
said “ Strike ! ” Frank Henchman was a florid toady. My uncle, 
Major Pendennis, has often laughed with me about the fellow’s 
pompous flatteries and ebullient fidelity. 

“You have read this confounded paragraph ? ” says the Marquis. 

“We have read it : and were deucedly cut up, too,” says Hench- 
man, “ for your sake, my dear boy.” 

“ I remembered what you said last year, Marquis,” cries Tod- 
hunter (not unadroitly). “You yourself pointed out, in this very 
room, I recollect, at this very table — that night Coralie and the 
little Spanish dancer and her mother supped here, and there was a 
talk about Highgate — you yourself pointed out what was likely to 
happen. I doubted it ; for I have dined at the Newcomes’, and 
seen Highgate and her together in society often. But though you 
are a younger bird, you have better eyes than I have — and you saw 
the thing at once — at once, don’t you remember 1 ? and Coralie said 
how glad she was, because Sir Barnes ill-treated her friend. What 
was the name of Coralie’s friend, Hench 1 ” 


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621 


“ How should /know her confounded name ? ” Henchman briskly 
answers. “What do I care for Sir Barnes Newcome and his private 
affairs'? He is no friend of mine. I never said he was a friend of mine. 
I never said I liked him. Out of respect for the Chief here, I held 
my tongue about him, and shall hold my tongue. Have some of this 
pat^, Chief ! No? Poor old boy. I know you haven’t got an appetite. 
I know this news cuts you up. I say nothing, and make no pre 
tence of condolence ; though I feel for you — and you know you can 
count on old Frank Henchman — don’t you, Malcolm ? ” And again 
he turns away to conceal his gallant sensibility and generous emotion. 

“What does it matter to me?” bursts out the Marquis, gar- 
nishing his conversation with the usual expletives which adorned 
his eloquence when he was strongly moved. “ What do I care for 
Barnes Newcome and his confounded affairs and family? I never 
want to see him again, but in the light of a banker, when I go to 
the City, where he keeps my account. I say, I have nothing to do 
with him, or all the Newcomes under the sun. Why, one of them 
is a painter, and will paint my dog Ratcatcher, by Jove! or my 
horse, or my groom, if I give him the order. Do you think I care 
for any one of the pack ? It’s not the fault of the Marchioness of 
Farintosh that her family is not equal to mine. Besides two others 
in England and Scotland, I should like to know what family is ? I 
tell you what, Hench. I bet you five to two, that before an hour 
is over my mother will be here, and down on her knees to me, 
begging me to break off this engagement.” 

“And what will you do, Farintosh?” asks Henchman slowly. 
“Will you break it off?” 

“ No ! ” shouts the Marquis. “Why should I break off with the 
finest girl in England — and the best-plucked one, and the cleverest 
and wittiest, and the most beautiful creature, by Jove, that ever 
stepped, for no fault of hers, and because her sister-in-law leaves 
her brother, who I know treated her infernally ? We have talked 
this matter over at home before. I wouldn’t dine with .the fellow, 
though he was always asking me ; nor meet, except just out of 
civility, any of his confounded family. Lady Ann is different. She 
is a lady, she is. She is a good woman : and Kew is a most respect 
able man, though he is only a peer of George III.’s creation, and 
you should hear how he speaks of Miss Newcome, though she refused 
him. I should like to know who is to prevent me marrying Lady 
Ann Newcome’s daughter?” 

“ By Jove, you are a good-plucked fellow, Farintosh — give me 
vour hand, old boy,” says Henchman. 

“ Heh ! am I ? You would have said, Give me your hand, old 
boy, whichever way I determined, Hench ! I tell you, I ain’t 


* 6*22 


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intellectual, and that sort of thing. But I know my rank, and I 
know my place; and when a man of my station gives his word, 
he sticks to it, sir ; and my Lady and my sisters may go on their 
knees all round ; and, by Jove, I won’t flinch.” 

The justice of Lord Farintosh’s views was speedily proved by 
the appearance of his Lordship’s mother, Lady Glenlivat, whose 
arrival put a stop to a conversation which Captain Francis Hench- 
man has often subsequently narrated. She besought to see her 
son in terms so urgent, that the young nobleman could not be 
denied to his parent ; and, no doubt, a long and interesting interview 
took place, in which Lord Farintosh’s mother passionately implored 
him to break off a match upon which he was as resolutely bent. 

Was it a sense of honour, a longing desire to possess this young 
beauty, and call her his own, or a fierce and profound dislike to 
being balked in any object of his wishes, which actuated the 
young lord? Certainly he had borne very philosophically delay 
after delay which had taken place in the devised union ; and being 
quite sure of his mistress, had not cared to press on the marriage, 
but lingered over the dregs of his bachelor cup complacently still. 
We all know in what an affecting farewell he took leave of the 
associates of his vie de gargon : the speeches made (in both 
languages), the presents distributed, the tears and hysterics of 
some of the guests assembled : the cigar-boxes given over to this 
friend, the ecrin of diamonds to that, et csetera, et csetera, et csetera. 
Don’t we know ? If we don’t it is not Henchman’s fault, who has 
told the story of Farintosh’s betrothals a thousand and one times 
at his clubs, at the houses where he is asked to dine, on account 
of his intimacy with the nobility, among the young men of fashion, 
or no fashion, whom this two-bottle Mentor and burly admirer of 
youth has since taken upon himself to form. The farewell at 
Greenwich was so affecting that all “ traversed the cart,” and took 
another farewell at Richmond, where there was crying too, but it 
was Eucharis cried because fair Calypso wanted to tear her eyes 
out ; and where not only Telemachus (as was natural to his age), 
but Mentor likewise, quaffed the wine-cup too freely. You are 
virtuous, 0 reader ! but there are still cakes and ale. Ask Hench- 
man if there be not. You will find him in the Park any afternoon ; 
he will dine with you if no better man ask him in the interval. 
He will tell you story upon story regarding young Lord Farintosh, 
and his marriage, and what happened before his marriage, and 
afterwards ; and he will sigh, weep almost at some moments, as 
he narrates their subsequent quarrel, and Farintosh’s unworthy 
conduct, and tells you how he formed that young man. My uncle 
and Captain Henchman disliked each other very much, I am sorry 


THE NEWCOMES 623 

to say — sorry to add that it was very amusing to hear either one 
of them speak of the other. 

Lady Glenlivat, according to the Captain, then, had no success 
in the interview with her son ; who, unmoved by the maternal 
tears, commands, and entreaties, swore he would marry Miss 
Newcome, and that no power on earth should prevent him. “ As 
if trying to thwart that man — could ever prevent his having his 
way ! ” ejaculated his quondam friend. 

But on the next day, after ten thousand men in clubs and 
coteries had talked the news over ; after the evening had repeated 
and improved the delightful theme of our “morning contempo- 
raries after Calypso and Eucharis driving together in the Park, 
and reconciled now, had kissed their hands to Lord Farintosh, and 
made him their compliments — after a night of natural doubt, disturb- 
ance, defiance, fury — as men whispered to each other at the club 
where his Lordship dined, and at the theatre where he took his 
recreation — after an awful time at breakfast, in which Messrs. 
Bowman, valet, and Todhunter and Henchman, captains of the 
Farintosh body-guard, all got their share of kicks and growling — 
behold Lady Glenlivat came back to the charge again ; and this 
time with such force that poor Lord Farintosh was shaken indeed. 

Her Ladyship’s ally was no other than Miss Newcome herself; 
from whom Lord Farintosh’s mother received, by that day’s post, a 
letter, which she was commissioned to read to her son : — 

“ Dear Madam ” (wrote the young lady in her firmest hand- 
writing), — “ Mamma is at this moment in a state of such grief and 
dismay at the cruel misfortune and humiliation which has just 
befallen our family, that she is really not able to write to you as 
she ought , and this task, painful as it is, must be mine. Dear 
Lady Glenlivat, the kindness and confidence which I have ever 
received from you and yours , merit truth, and most grateful respect 
and regard from me. And I feel after the late fatal occurrence, 
what I have often and often owned to myself though I did not 
dare to acknowledge it, that I ought to release Lord F., at once 
and for ever , from an engagement which he coidd never think of 
maintaining with a family so unfortunate as ours. I thank him with 
all my heart for his goodness in bearing with my humours so long ; 
if I have given him pain, as I know I have sometimes, I beg his 
pardon, and would do so on my knees. I hope and pray he may be 
happjq as I feared he never could be with me. He has many good 
and noble qualities ; and, in bidding him farewell, I trust I may 
retain his friendship, and that he will believe in the esteem and 
gratitude of your most sincere Ethel Newcome.” 


624 


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A copy of this farewell letter was seen by a lady who happened 
to be a neighbour of Miss Newcome’s when the family misfortune 
occurred, and to whom, in her natural dismay and grief, the young 
lady fled for comfort and consolation. “ Dearest Mrs. Pendennis,” 
wrote Miss Ethel to my wife — “ I hear you are at Rosebury ; do, 
do come to your affectionate E. N.” The next day, it was — 
“Dearest Laura — If you can, pray, pray come to Newcome this 
morning. I want very much to speak to you about the poor 
children, to consult you about something most important .” 
Madame de Montcontour’s pony-carriage was trotting constantly 
between Rosebury and Newcome in these days of calamity. 

And my wife, as in duty bound, gave me full reports of all that 
happened in that house of mourning. On the very day of the flight, 
Lady Ann, her daughter, and some others of her family arrived at 
Newcome. The deserted little girl, Barnes’s eldest child, ran, with 
tears and cries of joy, to her Aunt Ethel, whom she had always 
loved better than her mother ; and clung to her and embraced her ; 
and, in her artless little words, told her that mamma had gone 
away, and that Ethel should be her mamma now. Very strongly 
moved by the misfortune, as by the caresses and affection of the 
poor orphaned creature, Ethel took the little girl to her heart, and 
promised to be a mother to her, and that she would not leave her ; 
in which pious resolve I scarcely need say Laura strengthened 
her, when, at her young friend’s urgent summons, my wife came 
to her. 

The household at Newcome was in a state of disorganisation 
after the catastrophe. One of Lady Clara’s servants, it has been 
stated already, went away with her. The luckless master of the 
house was lying wounded in the neighbouring town. Lady Ann 
Newcome, his mother, was terribly agitated by the news, which 
was abruptly broken to her, of the flight of her daughter-in-law and 
her son’s danger. Now she thought of flying to Newcome to 
nurse him; and then feared lest she should be ill-received by the 
invalid — indeed, ordered by Sir Barnes to go home, and not to 
bother him. So at home Lady Ann remained, where the thoughts 
of the sufferings she had already undergone in that house ; of Sir 
Barnes’s cruel behaviour to her at her last visit, which he had 
abruptly requested her to shorten ; of the happy days which she 
had passed as mistress of that house and wife of the defunct Sir 
Brian; the sight of that departed angel’s picture in the dining- 
room and wheel-chair in the gallery; the recollection of little 
Barnes as a cherub of a child in that very gallery, and pulled out 
of the fire by a nurse in the second year of his age, when he 
was all that a fond mother would wish — these incidents and 


THE NEWCOMES 


6 25 


reminiscences so agitated Lady Ann Neweome, that she, for her 
part, went off in a series of hysterical fits, and acted as one dis- 
traught; her second daughter screamed in sympathy with her; 
and Miss Neweome had to take the command of the whole of this 
demented household, hysterical mamma and sister, mutineering 
servants, and shrieking abandoned nursery, and bring young people 
and old to peace and quiet. 

On the morrow after his little concussion Sir Barnes Neweome 
came home, not much hurt in body, but woefully afflicted in temper, 
and venting his wrath upon everybody round about him in that 
strong language which he employed when displeased ; and under 
which his valet, his housekeeper, his butler, his farm-bailiff, his 
lawyer, his doctor, his dishevelled mother herself — who rose from 
her couch and her sal-volatile to fling herself round her dear boy’s 
knees — all had to suffer. Ethel Neweome, the Baronet’s sister, 
was the only person in his house to whom Sir Barnes did not utter 
oaths or proffer rude speeches. He was afraid of offending her or 
encountering that resolute spirit, and lapsed into a surly silence in 
her presence. Indistinct maledictions growled about Sir Barnes’s 
chair when he beheld my wife’s pony-carriage drive up ; and he 
asked what brought her here % But Ethel sternly told her brother 
that Mrs. Pendennis came at her particular request, and asked 
him whether he supposed anybody could come into that house for 
pleasure now, or for any other motive but kindness 1 ? Upon which 
Sir Barnes fairly burst out into tears, intermingled with execrations 
against his enemies and his own fate, and assertions that he was 
the most miserable beggar alive. He would not see his children : 
but with more tears he would implore Ethel never to leave them, 
and, anon, would ask what he should do when she married, and he 
was left alone in that infernal house ? 

T. Potts, Esquire, of the Neweome Independent , used to say 
afterwards that the Baronet was in the direst terror of another 
meeting with Lord Highgate, and kept a policeman at the lodge- 
gate, and a second in the kitchen, to interpose in event of a collision. 
But Mr. Potts made this statement in after days, when the quarrel 
between his party and paper and Sir Barnes Neweome was flagrant. 
Five or six days after the meeting of the two rivals in Neweome 
market-place, Sir Barnes received a letter from the friend of Lord 
Highgate, informing him that his Lordship, having waited for him 
according to promise, had now left England, and presumed that 
the differences between them were to be settled by their respective 
lawyers — “infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord 
Highgate’s villainy,” the Baronet said. “When the scoundrel 
knew I could lift my pistol arm,” Barnes said, “Lord Highgate 

8 2 it 


626 


THE NEWCQMES 


fled the country ; ” thus hinting that death, and not damages, was 
what he intended to seek from his enemy. 

After that infer view in which Ethel communicated to Laura 
her farewell letter to Lord Farintosh, my wife returned to Bosebury 
with an extraordinary brightness and gaiety in her face and her 
demeanour. She pressed Madame de Montcontour’s hands with 
such warmth, she blushed and looked so handsome, she sang and 
talked so gaily, that our host was struck by her behaviour, and 
paid her husband more compliments regarding her beauty, amiability, 
and other good qualities, than need be set down here. It may be 
that I like Paul de Florae so much, in spite of certain undeniable 
faults of character, because of his admiration for my wife. She 
was in such a hurry to talk to me that night, that Paul’s game and 
nicotian amusements were cut short by her visit to the billiard- 
room ; and when we were alone by the cosy dressing-room fire, she 
told me what had happened during the day. Why should Ethel’s 
refusal of Lord Farintosh have so much elated my wife ? 

“ Ah ! ” cries Mrs. Pendennis, “ she has a generous nature, and 
the world has not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are 
many points that she never has thought of — I would say problems 
that she has to work out for herself, only you, Pen, do not like 
us poor ignorant women to use such a learned word as problems ? 
Life and experience force things upon her mind which others learn 
from their parents or those who educate them, but for which she 
has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever told her, Arthur, 
that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce lightly those 
awful vows which we utter before God at the altar. I believe, if 
she knew that her life was futile, it is but of late she has thought 
it could be otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have read 
(besides that poem of Goethe of which you are so fond) in books 
of Indian travels of Bayaderes, dancing-girls brought up by troops 
round about the temples, whose calling is to dance, and wear jewels, 
and look beautiful; I believe they are quite respected in — in 
Pagoda-land. They perform before the priests in the pagodas ; and 
the Brahmins and the Indian princes marry them. Can we cry 
out against these poor creatures, or against the custom of their 
country? It seems to me that young women in our world are 
bred up in a way not very different. What they do they scarcely 
know to be wrong. They are educated for the world, and taught 
to display : their mothers will give them to the richest suitor, as 
they themselves were given before. How can these think seriously, 
Arthur, of souls to be saved, weak hearts to be kept out of tempta- 
tion, prayers to be uttered, and a better world to be held always in 


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627 


view, when the vanities of this one are all their thought and 
scheme? Ethel’s simple talk made me smile sometimes, do you 
know, and her strenuous way of imparting her discoveries. I 
thought of the shepherd boy who made a watch, and found on 
taking it into the town how very many watches there were, and 
how much better than his. But the poor child has had to make 
hers for herself, such as it is ; and, indeed, is employed now in working 
on it. She told me very artlessly her little history, Arthur; it 
affected me to hear her simple talk, and — and I blessed God for 
our mother, my dear, and that my early days had had a better guide. 

“You know that for a long time it was settled that she was to 
marry her cousin, Lord Kew. She was bred to that notion from 
her earliest youth ; about which she spoke as we all can about our 
early days. They were spent, she said, in the nursery and school- 
room for the most part. She was allowed to come to her mother’s 
dressing-room, and sometimes to see more of her during the winter 
at Newcome. She describes her mother as always the kindest of 
the kind : but from very early times the daughter must have felt 
her own superiority, I think, though she does not speak of it. You 
should see her at home now in their dreadful calamity. She seems 
the only person of the house who keeps her head. 

“ She told very nicely and modestly how it was Lord Kew who 
parted from her, not she who had dismissed him, as you know the 
Newcomes used to say. I have heard that — oh ! — that man Sir 
Barnes say so myself. She says humbly that her cousin Kew was 
a great deal too good for her ; and so is every one almost, she adds, 
poor thing ! ” 

“ Poor every one ! Did you ask about him, Laura ? ” said Mr. 
Pendennis. 

“ No ; I did not venture. She looked at me out of her down- 
right eyes, and went on with her little tale. ‘ I was scarcely more 
than a child then,’ she continued, ‘and though I liked Kew very 
much — who would not like such a generous honest creature ? — I felt 
somehow that I was taller than my cousin, and as if I ought not to 
marry him, or should make him unhappy if I did. When poor 
papa used to talk, we children remarked that mamma hardly 
listened to him ; and so we did not respect him as we should, and 
Barnes was especially scoffing and odious with him. Why, when 
he was a boy, he used to sneer at papa openly before us younger 
ones. Now Henrietta admires everything that Kew says, and that 
makes her a great deal happier at being with him.’ And then,” 
added Mrs. Pendennis, “Ethel said, ‘I hope you respect your 
husband, Laura : depend on it you will be happier if you do.’ 
Was not that a fine discovery of Ethel’s, Mr. Pen ? 


628 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ ‘ Clara’s terror of Barnes frightened me when I stayed in the 
house,’ Ethel went on. ‘ I am sure I would not tremble before any 
man in the world as she did. I saw early that she used to deceive 
him, and tell him lies, Laura. I do not mean lies of words alone, 
but lies of looks and actions. Oh ! I do not wonder at her flying 
from him. He was dreadful to be with : cruel, and selfish, and 
cold. He was made worse by marrying a woman he did not love ; 
as she was, by that unfortunate union with him. Suppose he had 
found a clever woman who could have controlled him, and amused 
him, and whom he and his friends could have admired, instead of 
poor Clara, who made his home wearisome, and trembled when he 
entered it ? Suppose she could have married that unhappy man to 
whom she was attached early? I was frightened, Laura, to think 
how ill this worldly marriage had prospered. 

“ ‘ My poor grandmother, whenever I spoke upon such a 
subject, would break out into a thousand jibes and sarcasms, and 
point to many of our friends who had made love-matches, and were 
quarrelling now as fiercely as though they had never loved each 
other. You remember that dreadful case in France of the Due 

de , who murdered his duchess ? That was a love-match, and 

I can remember the sort of screech with which Lady Kew used to 
speak about it; and of the journal which the poor duchess kept, 
and in which she noted down all her husband’s ill-behaviour.’ ” 

“ Hush, Laura ! Do you remember where we are % If the 
Princess were to put down all Florae’s culpabilities in an album, 
what a ledger it would be — as big as Dr. Portman’s £ Chrysostom ’ ! ” 
But this was parenthetical ; and after a smile, and a little respite, 
the young woman proceeded in her narration of her friend’s history. 

“‘I was willing enough to listen,’ Ethel said, ‘ to grandmamma 
then : for we are glad of an excuse to do what we like ; and I liked 
admiration, and rank, and great wealth, Laura ; and Lord Farintosh 
offered me these. I liked to surpass my companions, and I saw 
them so. eager in pursuing him ! You cannot think, Laura, what 
meannesses women in the world will commit — mothers and daughters 
too — in the pursuit of a person of his great rank. Those Miss 
Burrs, you should have seen them at the country houses where we 
visited together, and how they followed him ; how they would meet 
him in the parks and shrubberies ; how they liked smoking, thougli 
I knew it made them ill ; how they were always finding pretexts 
for getting near him ! Oh, it was odious ! ’ ” 

I would not willingly interrupt the narrative, but let the re- 
porter be allowed here to state that at this point of Miss Newcome’s 
story (which my wife gave with a very pretty imitation of the girl’s 
manner), we both burst out laughing so loud that little Madame de 


THE NEWCOMES 


629 

Montcontour put her head into the dressing-room and asked what 
we was a laughing at 1 ? We did not tell our hostess that poor Ethel 
and her grandmother had been accused of doing the very same thing 
for which she found fault with the Misses Burr. Miss Newcome 
thought herself quite innocent, or how should she have cried out at 
the naughty behaviour of other people ? 

“ ‘ Wherever we went, however,’ resumed my wife’s young 
penitent, ‘ it was easy to see, I think I may say so without vanity, 
who was the object of Lord Farintosh’s attention. He followed us 
everywhere ; and we could not go upon any visit in England or 
Scotland but he was in the same house. Grandmamma’s whole 
heart was bent on that marriage, and when he proposed for me I 
do not disown that I was very pleased and vain. 

“ f It is in these last months that I have heard about him more, 
and learned to know him better — him and myself too, Laura. 
Some one — some one you know, and whom I shall always love as 
a brother— reproached me in former days for a worldliness about 
which you talk too sometimes. But it is not worldly to give your- 
self up for your family, is it ? One cannot help the rank in which 
one is born, and surely it is but natural and proper to marry in it. 
Not that Lord Farintosh thinks me or any one of his rank.’ (Here 
Miss Ethel laughed.) ‘ He is the Sultan, and we — every unmarried 
girl in society is his humblest slave. His Majesty’s opinions upon 
this subject did not suit me, I can assure you : I have no notion of 
such pride ! 

“ ‘ But I do not disguise from you, dear Laura, that after ac- 
cepting him, as I came to know him better, and heard him, and 
heard of him, and talked with him daily, and understood Lord 
Farintosh’s character, I looked forward with more and more doubt 
to the day when I w T as to become his wife. I have not learned to 
respect him in these months that I have known him, and during 
which there has been mourning in our families. I will not talk to 
you about him ; I have no right, have I ? — to hear him speak out 
his heart, and tell it to any friend. He said he liked me because I 
did not flatter him. Poor Malcolm ! they all do. What was my 
acceptance of him, Laura, but flattery 1 Yes, flattery, and servility 
to rank, and a desire to possess it. Would I have accepted plain 
Malcolm Roy 1 I sent away a better than he, Laura. 

“ ‘ These things have been brooding in my mind for some months 
past. I must have been but an ill companion for him, and indeed 
he bore with my waywardness much more kindly than I ever thought 
possible; and when four days since we came to this sad house, 
where he was to have joined us, and I found only dismay and 
wretchedness, and these poor children deprived of a mother, whom 


630 


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I pity, God help her, for she has been made so miserable — and is 
now and must be to the end of her days • — as I lay awake, think- 
ing of my own future life, and that I was going to marry, as poor 
Clara had married, but for an establishment and a position in life ; 
I, my own mistress, and not obedient by nature, or a slave to 
others as that poor creature was — I thought to myself, why should 
I do this ? Now Clara has left us, and is, as it were, dead to us 
who made her so unhappy, let me be the mother to her orphans. 
I love the little girl, and she has always loved me, and came crying 
to me that day when we arrived, and put her dear little arms round 
my neck, and said, “ You won’t go away, will you, Aunt Ethel ? ” 
in her sweet voice. And I will stay with her ; and will try and 
learn myself that I may teach her; and learn to be good too — 
better than I have been. Will praying help me, Laura? I did. 
I am sure I was right, and that it is my duty to stay here.’ ” 

Laura was greatly moved as she told her friend’s confession ; 
and when the next day at church the clergyman read the opening 
words of the service I thought a peculiar radiance and happiness 
beamed from her bright face. 

Some subsequent occurrences in the history of this branch of 
the Newcome family I am enabled to report from the testimony of 
the same informant, who has just given us an account of her own 
feelings and life. Miss Ethel and my wife were now in daily 
communication, and “ my-dearesting ” each other with that female 
fervour which, cold men of the world as we are — not only chary 
of warm expressions of friendship, but averse to entertaining warm 
feelings at all — we surely must admire in persons of the inferior sex, 
whose loves grow up and reach the skies in a night ; who kiss, 
embrace, console, call each other by Christian names, who in that 
sweet, kindly sisterhood of Misfortune and Compassion are always 
entering into partnership here in life. I say the world is full of 
Miss Nightingales ; and we, sick and wounded in our private 
Scutaris, have countless nurse-tenders. I did not see my wife 
ministering to the afflicted family at Newcome Park ; but I can 
fancy her there amongst the women and children, her prudent 
counsel, her thousand gentle offices, her apt pity and cheerfulness, 
the love and truth glowing in her face, and inspiring her words, 
movements, demeanour. 

Mrs. Pendennis’s husband for his part did not attempt to console 
Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet. I never professed to 
have a halfpennyworth of pity at that gentleman’s command. 
Florae, who owed Barnes his principality and his present comforts 
in life, did make some futile efforts at condolence, but was received 


THE NEWCOMES 


631 


by the Baronet with such fierceness and evident ill-humour, that 
he did not care to repeat his visits, and allowed him to vent his 
curses and peevishness on his own immediate dependants. We 
used to ask Laura on her return to Roseburv from her charity visits 
to Newcome about the poor suffering master of the house. She 
faltered and stammered in describing him and what she heard of 
him ; she smiled, I grieve to say, for this unfortunate lady cannot 
help having a sense of humour; and we could not help laughing 
outright sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch, that 
overbearing creature overborne in his turn — which laughter Mrs. 
Laura used to chide as very naughty and unfeeling. When we 
went into Newcome the landlord of the “King’s Arms” looked 
knowing and quizzical ; Tom Potts grinned at me and rubbed 
his hands. “ This business serves the paper better than Mr. 
Warrington’s articles,” says Mr. Potts. “We have sold no end of 
Independents; and if you polled the whole borough, I bet that 
five to one would say Sir Screwcome Screwcome was served right. 
By the way, what’s up about the Marquis of Farintosh, Mr. 
Pendennis % He arrived at the 1 Arms ’ last night ; went over to 
the Park this morning, and is gone back to town by the afternoon 
train.” 

What had happened between the Marquis of Farintosh and Miss 
Newcome I am enabled to know from the report of Miss Newcome’s 
confidante. On the receipt of that letter of conge before mentioned, 
his Lordship must have been very much excited, for he left town 
straightway by that evening’s mail, and on the next morning, after 
a few hours of rest at his inn, was at Newcome lodge-gate demand- 
ing to see the Baronet. 

On that morning it chanced that Sir Barnes had left home with 
Mr. Speers, his legal adviser ; and hereupon the Marquis asked to 
see Miss Newcome; nor could the lodge-keeper venture to exclude 
so distinguished a person from the Park. His Lordship drove up 
to the house, and his name was taken to Miss Ethel. She turned 
very pale when she heard it; and my wife divined at once who 
was her visitor. Lady Ann had not left her room as yet. Laura 
Pendennis remained in command of the little conclave of children, 
with whom the two ladies were sitting wdien Lord Farintosh arrived. 
Little Clara vranted to go with her aunt as she rose to leave the 
room — the child could scarcely be got to part from her now. 

At the end of an hour the carriage was seen driving away, and 
Ethel returned, looking as pale as before, and red about the eyes. 
Miss Clara’s mutton-chop for dinner coming in at the same time, 
the child was not so presently eager for her aunt’s company. Aunt 
Ethel cut up the mutton-chop very neatly, and then having seen 


632 


THE NEWCOMES 


the child comfortably seated at her meal, went with her friend into 
a neighbouring apartment (of course with some pretext of showing 
Laura a picture, or a piece of china, or a child’s new frock, or with 
some other hypocritical pretence by which the ingenuous female 
attendants pretended to be utterly blinded), and there, I have no 
doubt, before beginning her story, dearest Laura embraced dearest 
Ethel, and vice versd. 

“He is gone ! ” at length gasps dearest Ethel. 

“ Pour toujours ? poor young man ! ” sighs dearest Laura. 
“ Was he very unhappy, Ethel ? ” 

“ He was more angry,” Ethel answers. “ He had a right to 
be hurt, but not to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at 
last, and broke out in the most frantic reproaches. He forgot all 
respect and even gentlemanlike behaviour. Do you know he used 
words — words such as Barnes uses sometimes when he is angry ! 
and dared this language to me ! I was sorry till then, very sorry, 
and very much moved; but I know more than ever now that I 
was right in refusing Lord Farintosli.” 

Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had 
happened, which may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very 
deeply upon the subject which brought him to Miss Newcome, it 
was no wonder that Lord Farintosh spoke at first in a way which 
moved her. He said he thought her letter to his mother was very 
rightly written under the circumstances, and thanked her for her 
generosity in offering to release him from his engagement. But 
the affair — the painful circumstance of Highgate, and that — which 
had happened in the Newcome family, was no fault of Miss 
Newcome’s, and Lord Farintosh could not think of holding her 
accountable. His friends had long urged him to marry, and it 
was by his mother’s own wish that the engagement was formed, 
which he was determined to maintain. In his course through the 
world (of which he was getting very tired), he had never seen a 
woman, a lady who was so — you understand, Ethel — whom he 
admired so much, who was likely to make so good a wife for him 
as you are. “ You allude,” he continued, “ to differences we have 
had — and we have had them — but many of them, I own, have 
been from my fault. J have been bred up in a way different to 
most young men. I cannot help it if I have had temptations to 
which other men are not exposed ; and have been placed by — by 
Providence — in a high rank of life ; I am sure if you share it with 
me you will adorn it, and be in every way worthy of it, and make me 
much better than I have been. If you knew what a night of agony 
I passed after my mother read that letter to me — I know you’d 
pity me, Ethel — I know you would. The idea of losing you makes 


THE NEWCOMES 


633 


me wild. My mother was dreadfully alarmed when she saw the 
state I was in ; so was the Doctor — I assure you he was. And 
I had no rest at all, and no peace of mind, until I determined to 
come down to you ; and say that I adored you, and you only ; and 
that I would hold to my engagement in spite of everything — and 
prove to you that — that no man in the world could love you more 
sincerely than I do.” Here the young gentleman was so overcome 
that he paused in his speech, and gave way to an emotion, for 
which surely no man who has been in the same condition with 
Lord Farintosh will blame him. 

Miss New come was also much touched by this exhibition of 
natural feeling ; and, I dare say, it was at this time that her eyes 
showed the first symptoms of that malady of which the traces were 
visible an hour after. 

“ You are very generous and kind to me, Lord Farintosh,” she 
said. “ Your constancy honours me very much, and proves how 
good and loyal you are ; but — but do not think hardly of me for 
saying that the more I have thought of what has happened here 
— of the wretched consequences of interested marriages ; the long 
union growing each day so miserable, that at last it becomes in- 
tolerable, and is burst asunder, as in poor Clara’s case ; — the more 
I am resolved not to commit that first fatal step of entering into a 
marriage without — without the degree of affection which people 
who take that vow ought to feel for one another.” 

“Affection! Can you doubt it 1 ? Gracious heavens, I adore 
you ! Isn’t my being here a proof that I do 1 ” cries the young 
lady’s lover. 

“But I?” answered the girl. “I have asked my own heart 
that question before now. I have thought to myself, — if he comes 
after all, — if his affection for me survives this disgrace of our family, 
as it has, and every one of us should be thankful to you — ought I 
not to show at least gratitude for so much kindness and honour, and 
devote myself to one who makes such sacrifices for me ? But before 
all things I owe you the truth, Lord Farintosh. I never could make 
you happy ; I know I could not : nor obey you as you are accus- 
tomed to be obeyed ; nor give you such a devotion as you have a 
right to expect from your wife. I thought I might once. I can’t 
now ! I know that I took you because you were rich, and had a 
great name ; not because you were honest, and attached to me as 
you show yourself to be. I ask your pardon for the deceit I 
practised on you.— Look at Clara, poor child, and her misery ! My 
pride, I know, would never have let me fall as far as she has done ; 
but oh ! I am humiliated to think that I could have been made to 
say I would take the first step in that awful career.” 


634 , 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ What career, in God’s name ? ” cries the astonished suitor. 
“Humiliated, Ethel? Who’s going to humiliate you? I suppose 
there is no woman in England who need be humiliated by becoming 
my wife, I should like to see the one that I can’t pretend to — or 
to royal blood if I like : it’s not better than mine. Humiliated, 
indeed ! That is news. Ha ! ha ! You don’t suppose that your 
pedigree, wdiich I know all about, and the Newcome family, with 
your barber-surgeon to Edward the Confessor, are equal to ” 

“ To yours ? No. It is not very long that I have learned to 
disbelieve in that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of 
my poor father’s, and that our family were quite poor people.” 

“ I knew it,” said Lord Farintosh. “Do you suppose there was 
not plenty of women to tell it me ? ” 

“ It was not because we were poor that I am ashamed,” Ethel 
went on. “ That cannot be our fault, though some of us seem to 
think it is, as they hide the truth so. One of my uncles used to 
tell me that my grandfather’s father was a labourer in Newcome : 
but I was a child then, and liked to believe the prettiest story 
best.” 

“ As if it matters ! ” cries Lord Farintosh. 

“As if it matters in your wife ? n’est-ce pas ? I never thought 
that it would. I should have told you, as it was my duty to tell 
you, all. It was not my ancestors you cared for; and it is you 
yourself that your wife must swear before Heaven to love.” 

“Of course it’s me,” answers the young man, not quite under- 
standing the train of ideas in his companion’s mind. “ And I’ve 
given up everything — everything — and have broken off with my old 
habits and — and things you know — and intend to lead a regular life 
— and will never go to Tattersall’s again ; nor bet a shilling ; nor 
touch another cigar if you like — that is, if you don’t like; for I 
love you so, Ethel — I do, with all my heart I do ! ” 

“ You are very generous and kind, Lord Farintosh,” Ethel said. 
“It is myself, not you, I doubt. Oh ! I am humiliated to make 
such a confession ! ” 

“ How humiliated ? ” Ethel withdrew the hand which the 
young nobleman endeavoured to seize. 

“ If,” she continued, “ if I found it was your birth, and your 
name, and your wealth that I coveted, and had nearly taken, ought 
I not to feel humiliated, and ask pardon of you and of God ? Oh, 
what perjuries poor Clara was made to speak — and see what has 
befallen her ! We stood by and heard her without being shocked. 
We applauded even. And to what shame and misery we brought 
her ! Why did her parents and mine consign her to such ruin ? 
She might have lived pure and happy but for us. With her 



SENTENCE IN THE CASE OF THE MARQUIS OF FARINTOSH. 






THE NEW COMES 


635 


example before me — not her flight, poor child — I am not afraid of 
that happening to me — but her long solitude, the misery of her 
wasted years, — my brother’s own wretchedness and faults aggra- 
vated a hundredfold by his unhappy union with her — I must pause 
while it is yet time, and recall a promise which I know I should 
make you unhappy if I fulfilled. I ask your pardon that I deceived 
you, Lord Farintosh, and feel ashamed for myself that I could have 
consented to do so.” 

“ Do you mean,” cried the young Marquis, “ that after my con- 
duct to you — after my loving you, so that even this — this disgrace 
in your family don’t prevent my going on — after my mother has 
been down on her knees to me to break off, and I wouldn’t — no, I 
wouldn’t — after all White’s sneering at me and laughing at me, and 
all my friends, friends of my family who would go to — go anywhere 
for me, advising me, and saying, ‘ Farintosh, what a fool you are ; 
break off this match,’ — and I wouldn’t back out, because I loved 
you so, by Heaven, and because, as a man and a gentleman, when 
I give my word I keep it — do you mean that you throw me over 1 
It’s a shame — it’s a shame ! ” And again there were tears of rage 
and anguish in Farintosh’s eyes. 

“What I did was a shame, my Lord,” Ethel said humbly; 
“ and again I ask your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell 
you the truth, and to grieve with all my soul for the falsehood — 
yes, the falsehood — which I told you, and which has given your 
kind heart such cruel pain.” 

“Yes, it was a falsehood ! ” the poor lad cried out. “You 
follow a fellow, and you make a fool of him, and you make him 
frantic in love with you, and then you fling him over ! I wonder 
you can look me in the face after such an infernal treason. You’ve 
done it to twenty fellows before, I know you have. Everybody 
said so, and warned me. You draw them on, and get them to be 
in love, and then you fling them away. Am I to go back to 
London, and be made the laughing-stock of the whole town — I, who 
might marry any woman in Europe, and who am at the head of the 
nobility of England ” 

“Upon my word, if you will believe me after deceiving you 
once,” Ethel interposed, still very humbly, “ I will never say that 
it was I who withdrew from you, and that it was not you who re- 
fused me. What has happened here fully authorises you. Let 
the rupture of the engagement come from you, my Lord. Indeed, 
indeed, I would spare you all the pain I can. I have done you 
wrong enough already, Lord Farintosh.” 

And now the Marquis burst forth with tears and imprecations, 
wild cries of anger, love, and disappointment, so fierce and inco- 


636 


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hereut that the lady to whom they were addressed did not repeat 
them to her confidante. Only she generously charged Laura to 
remember, if ever she heard the matter talked of in the world, that 
it was Lord Farintosh’s family which broke off the marriage ; but 
that his Lordship had acted most kindly and generously through- 
out the whole affair. 

He went back to London in such a state of fury, and raved so 
wildly amongst his friends against the whole Newcome family, that 
many men knew what the case really was. But all women averred 
that that intriguing worldly Ethel Newcome, the apt pupil of her 
wicked old grandmother, had met with a deserved rebuff; that, 
after doing everything in her power to catch the great parti , Lord 
Farintosh, who had long been tired of her, flung her over, not liking 
the connection ; and that she was living out of the world now at 
Newcome, under the pretence of taking care of that unfortunate 
Lady Clara’s children, but really because she was pining away for 
Lord Farintosh, who, as we all know, married six months afterwards. 


CHAPTER LX 


IN WHICH WE WRITE TO THE COLONEL 
EEMING that her brother Barnes had cares enough of his 



own presently on hand, Ethel did not think fit to confide to 


him the particulars of her interview with Lord Farintosh; 
nor even was poor Lady Ann informed that she had lost a noble 
son-in-law. The news would come to both of them soon enough, 
Ethel thought ; and indeed, before many hours were over, it reached 
Sir Barnes Newcome in a very abrupt and unpleasant way. He 
had dismal occasion now to see his lawyers every day ; and on the 
day after Lord Farm tosh’s abrupt visit and departure, Sir Barnes, 
going into Newcome upon his own unfortunate affairs, was told by 
his attorney, Mr. Speers, how the Marquis of Farintosh had slept 
for a few hours at the “King’s Arms,” and returned to town the 
same evening by the train. We may add, that his Lordship had 
occupied the very room in which Lord Highgate had previously 
slept ; and Mr. Taplow recommends the bed accordingly, and shows 
it with pride to this very day. 

Much disturbed by this intelligence, Sir Barnes was making his 
way to his cheerless home in the evening, when near his own gate 
he overtook another messenger. This was the railway porter, who 
daily brought telegraphic messages from his uncle and the bank in 
London. The message of that day was, — “ Consols, so-and-so. 
French Rentes, so much. Highgate’s and Farintostis accounts 
withdrawn .” The wretched keeper of the lodge owned, with 
trembling, in reply to the curses and queries of his employer, that a 
gentleman, calling himself the Marquis of Farintosh, had gone up 
to the house the day before, and come away an hour afterwards, — 
did not like to speak to Sir Barnes when he came home, Sir Barnes 
looked so bad like. 

Now, of course, there could be no concealment from her brother, 
and Ethel and Barnes had a conversation, in which the latter ex- 
pressed himself with that freedom of language which characterised 
the head of the house of Newcome. Madame de Mon tcon tour’s 
pony-chaise was in waiting at the hall-door when the owner of the 
house entered it ; and my wife was just taking leave of Ethel and 


6.38 THE NEWCOMES 

her little people when Sir Barnes Newcome entered the lady’s 
sitting-room. 

The livid scowl with which Barnes greeted my wife surprised 
that lady, though it did not induce her to prolong her visit to her 
friend. As Laura took leave, she heard Sir Barnes screaming to 
the nurses to “take those little beggars away,” and she rightly 
conjectured that some more unpleasantries had occurred to disturb 
this luckless gentleman’s temper. 

On the morrow, dearest Ethel’s usual courier, one of the boys 
from the lodge, trotted over on his donkey to dearest Laura at 
Rosebury, with one of those missives w r hich were daily passing 
between the ladies. This letter said : — 

“ Barnes m’a fait une sckne terrible hier. I was obliged to tell 
him everything about Lord F., and to use the 'plainest language. 
At first, he forbade you the house. He thinks that you have been 
the cause of F.’s dismissal, and charged me, most unjustly , with a 
desire to bring back poor C. N. I replied as became me , and told 
him fairly I would leave the house if odious insulting charges were 
made against me ; if my friends were not received. He stormed, 
he cried, he employed his usual language , — he was in a dreadful 
state. He relented and asked pardon. He goes to town to-night 
by the mail-train. Of course you come as usual, dear dear Laura. 
I am miserable without you ; and you know I cannot leave poor 
mamma. Clarykin sends a thousand hisses to little Arty ; and I 
am his mother's always affectionate E. N. 

“Will the gentlemen like to shoot our pheasants? Please ask 
the Prince to let Warren know when. I sent a brace to poor dear 
old Mrs. Mason, and had such a nice letter from her ! ” 

“And who is poor dear Mrs. Mason?” asks Mr. Pendennis, 
as yet but imperfectly acquainted with the history of the 
Newcomes. 

And Laura told me — perhaps I had heard before, and for- 
gotten — that Mrs. Mason was an old nurse and pensioner of the 
Colonel’s, and how he had been to see her for the sake of old times ; 
and how she was a great favourite with Ethel ; and Laura kissed 
her little son, and was exceedingly bright, cheerful, and hilarious 
that evening, in spite of the affliction under which her dear friends 
at Newcome were labouring. 

People in country houses should be exceedingly careful about 
their blotting-paper. They should bring their own portfolios with 
them. If any kind readers will bear this simple little hint in mind, 


THE NEWCOMES 


639 

how much mischief may they save themselves, — nay, enjoy possibly, 
by looking at the pages of the next portfolio in the next friend’s 
bedroom in which they sleep. From such a book I once cut out, 
in Charles Slyboots’ well-known and perfectly clear handwriting, 
the words, “ Miss Emily Hartington, James Street, Buckingham 
Gate, London,” and produced as legibly on the blotting-paper as 
on the envelope which the postman delivered. After showing the 
paper round to the company, I enclosed it in a note and sent it 
to Mr. Slyboots, who married Miss Hartington three months 
afterwards. In such a book at the club I read, as plainly as 
you may read this page, a holograph page of the Right Honour- 
able the Earl of Bareacres, which informed the whole club of a 
painful and private circumstance, and said, “ My dear Green, — 
I am truly sorry that I shall not be able to take up the bill for 
eight hundred and fifty-six pounds, which becomes due next 
Tu . . . . ; ” and upon such a book, going to write a note in 
Madame de Montcontour’s drawing-room at Rosebury, what should 
I find but proofs that my own wife was engaged in a clandestine 
correspondence with a gentleman residing abroad ! 

“ Colonel Newcome, C.B., Montagne de la Cour, Brussels,” I 
read, in this young woman’s handwriting ; and asked, turning round 
upon Laura, who entered the room just as I discovered her guilt : 
“ What have you been writing to Colonel Newcome about, miss?” 

“ I wanted him to get me some lace,” she said. 

“To lace some nightcaps for me, didn’t you, my dear? He is 
such a fine judge of lace ! If I had known you had been writing, 
I would have asked you to send him a message. I want something 
from Brussels. Is the letter — ahem — gone ? ” (In this artful way, 
you see, I just hinted that I should like to see the letter.) 

“The letter is — ahem — gone,” says Laura. “What do you 
want from Brussels, Pen ? ” 

“ I want some Brussels sprouts, my love — they are so fine in 
their native country.” 

“ Shall I write to him to send the letter back ? ” palpitates poor 
little Laura ; for she thought her husband was offended, by using 
the ironic method. 

“ No, you dear little woman ! You need not send for the letter 
back : and you need not tell me what was in it : and I will bet you 
a hundred yards of lace to a cotton nightcap — and you know 
whether /, madam, am a man a bonnet-de-coton — I will bet you 
that I know what you have been writing about, under pretence of a 
message about lace, to our Colonel.” 

“He promised to send it me. He really did. Lady Rock- 
minster gave me twenty pounds ” gasps Laura. 


640 


THE NEWCOMES 


“Under pretence of lace, you have been sending over a love- 
message. You want to see whether Clive is still of his old mind. 
You think the coast is now clear, and that dearest Ethel may like 
him. You think Mrs. Mason is growing very old and infirm, and 
the sight of her dear boy would ” 

“ Pen ! Pen ! did you open my letter ? ” cries Laura ; and a 
laugh which could afford to be good-humoured (followed by yet 
another expression of the lips) ended this colloquy. No; Mr. 
Pendennis did not see the letter — but he knew the writer; — 
flattered himself that he knew women in general. 

“ Where did you get your experience of them, sir ? ” asks Mrs. 
Laura. Question answered in the same manner as the previous 
demand. 

“Well, my dear; and why should not the poor boy be made 
happy ? ” Laura continues, standing very close up to her husband. 
“It is evident to me that Ethel is fond of him. I would rather 
see her married to a good young man whom she loves, than the 
mistress of a thousand palaces and coronets. Suppose — suppose 
you had married Miss Amory, sir, what a wretched worldly creature 
you would have been by this time ; whereas now ” 

“Now that I am the humble slave of a good woman there is 
some chance for me,” cries this model of husbands. “And all good 
women are match-makers, as we know very well ; and you have had 
this match in your heart ever since you saw the two young people 
together. Now, madam, since I did not see your letter to the 
Colonel — though I have guessed part of it — tell me what have you 
said in it ? Have you by any chance told the Colonel that the 
Farintosh alliance was broken off'?” 

Laura owned that she had hinted as much. 

“ You have not ventured to say that Ethel is well inclined to 
Clive?” 

“ Oh no — oh, dear, no ! ” But after much cross-examining 
and a little blushing on Laura’s part, she is brought to confess that 
she has asked the Colonel whether he will not come and see Mrs. 
Mason, who is pining to see him, and is growing very old. And I 
find out that she has been to see this Mrs. Mason ; that she and 
Miss Newcome visited the old lady the day before yesterday ; and 
Laura thought, from the manner in which Ethel looked at Clive’s 
picture, hanging up in the parlour of his father’s old friend, that 
she really was very much, &c. &c. So, the letter being gone, Mrs. 
Pendennis fe most eager about the answer to it, and day after day 
examines the bag, and is provoked that it brings no letter bearing 
the Brussels postmark. 

Madame de Montcontour seems perfectly well to know what 


THE NEWCOMES 


641 


Mrs. Laura has been doing and is hoping. “ What, no letters again 
to-day 1 ? Ain’t it provoking?” she cries. She is in the conspiracy 
too ; and presently Florae is one of the initiated. “ These women 
wish to bdcler a marriage between the belle Miss and le petit 
Claive,” Florae announces to me. He pays the highest compli- 
ments to Miss Newcome’s person, as he speaks regarding the 
marriage. “ I continue to adore your Anglaises,” he is pleased to 
say. “ What of freshness, what of beauty, what roses ! And then 
they are so adorably good ! Go, Pendennis, thou art a happy 
coquin ! ” Mr. Pendennis does not say “ No.” He has won the 
twenty-thousand-pound prize ; and we know there are worse than 
blanks in that lottery. 


CHAPTER LX I 


IN WHICH WE ARE INTRODUCED TO A NEW NEWCOME 
0 answer came to Mrs. Pendennis’s letter to Colonel Newcome 



at Brussels, for the Colonel was absent from that city, and 


* ' at the time when Laura wrote was actually in London, 
whither affairs of his own had called him. A note from George 
Warrington acquainted me with this circumstance; he mentioned 
that he and the Colonel had dined together at Bays’s on the day 
previous, and that the Colonel seemed to be in the highest spirits. 
High spirits about what 1 This news put Laura in a sad perplexity. 
Should she write and tell him to get his letters from Brussels ? She 
would in five minutes have found some other pretext for writing to 
Colonel Newcome, had not her husband sternly cautioned the young 
woman to leave the matter alone. 

The more readily perhaps because he had quarrelled with his 
nephew Sir Barnes, Thomas Newcome went to visit his brother 
Hobson and his sister-in-law ; bent on showing that there was no 
division between him and this branch of his family. And you may 
suppose that the admirable woman just named had a fine occasion 
for her virtuous conversational powers in discoursing upon the pain- 
ful event which had just happened to Sir Barnes. When we fall, 
how our friends cry out for us ! Mrs. Hobson’s homilies must have 
been awful. How that outraged virtue must have groaned and 
lamented, gathered its children about its knees, wept over them 
and washed them ; gone into sackcloth and ashes, and tied up the 
knocker ; confabulated with its spiritual adviser ; uttered common- 
places to its husband ; and bored the whole house ! The punish- 
ment of worldliness and vanity, the evil of marrying out of one’s 
station, how these points must have been explained and enlarged 
on ! Surely the “ Peerage ” was taken off the drawing-room table 
and removed to papa’s study, where it could not open, as it used 
naturally once, to “ Highgate, Baron,” or “ Farintosh, Marquis of,” 
being shut behind wires and closely jammed in on an upper shelf be- 
tween Blackstone’s “ Commentaries” and the “Farmer’s Magazine”! 
The breaking of the engagement with the Marquis of Farintosh was 
known in Bryanstone Square ; and you may be sure interpreted by 


THE NEWCOMES 


643 


Mrs. Hobson in the light the most disadvantageous to Ethel New- 
come. “A young nobleman — with grief and pain Ethel’s aunt 
must own the fact — a young man of notoriously dissipated habits, 
but of great wealth and rank, had been pursued by the unhappy 
Lady Kew — Mrs. Hobson would not say by her niece, that were 
too dreadful — had been pursued, and followed, and hunted down in 
the most notorious manner, and finally made to propose ! Let 
Ethel’s conduct and punishment be a warning to my dearest girls, 
and let them bless Heaven they have parents who are not worldly ! 
After all the trouble and pains, Mrs. Hobson did not say disgrace , 
the Marquis takes the very first pretext to break off the match, and 
leaves the unfortunate girl for ever ! ” 

And now we have to tell of the hardest blow which fell upon 
poor Ethel, and this was that her good uncle Thomas Newcome 
believed the charges against her. He was willing enough to listen 
now to anything which was said against that branch of the family. 
With such a traitor, double-dealer, dastard as Barnes at its head, 
what could the rest of the race be ? When the Colonel offered to 
endow Ethel and Clive with every shilling he had in the world, had 
not Barnes, the arch-traitor, temporised and told him falsehoods, 
and hesitated about throwing him off until the Marquis had declared 
himself'? Yes. The girl he and poor Clive loved so was ruined 
by her artful relatives, was unworthy of his affection and his boy’s, 
was to be banished, like her worthless brother, out of his regard for 
ever. And the man she had chosen in preference to his Clive ! — a 
roue, a libertine, whose extravagances and dissipations were the 
talk of every club, who had no wit, nor talents, not even constancy 
(for had he not taken the first opportunity to throw her off?) to 
recommend him — only a great title and a fortune wherewith to 
bribe her ! For shame, for shame ! Her engagement to this 
man was a blot upon her — the rupture only a just punishment 
and humiliation. Poor unhappy girl ! let her take care of her 
wretched brother’s abandoned children, give up the world, and 
amend her life. 

This was the sentence Thomas Newcome delivered : a righteous 
and tender-hearted man, as we know, but judging in this case 
wrongly, and bearing much too hardly, as we who know her better 
must think, upon one who had her faults certainly, but whose 
errors were not all of her own making. Who set her on the path 
she walked in ? It was her parents’ hands which led her, and her 
parents’ voices which commanded her to accept the temptation set 
before her. What did she know of the character of the man selected 
to be her husband % Those who should have known better brought 
him to her, and vouched for him. Noble, unhappy young creature ! 


644 


THE NEWCOMES 


are you the first of your sisterhood who has been bidden to traffic 
your beauty, to crush and slay your honest natural affections, to 
sell your truth and your life for rank and title ? But the Judge 
who sees not the outward acts merely, but their causes, and views 
not the wrong alone, but the temptations, struggles, ignorance of 
erring creatures, we know has a different code to ours — to ours, 
who fall upon the fallen, who fawn upon the prosperous so, who 
administer our praises and punishments so prematurely, who now 
strike so hard, and, anon, spare so shamelessly. 

Our stay with our hospitable friends at Rosebury was perforce 
coming to a close, for indeed weeks after weeks had passed since we 
had been under their pleasant roof ; and in spite of dearest Ethel’s 
remonstrances it was clear that dearest Laura must take her 
farewell. In these last days, besides the visits which daily took 
place between one and other, the young messenger was put in 
ceaseless requisition, and his donkey must have been worn off his 
little legs with trotting to and fro between the two houses. Laura 
was quite anxious and hurt at not hearing from the Colonel : it was 
a shame that he did not have over his letters from Belgium and 
answer that one which she had honoured him by writing. By some 
information, received who knows how h our host was aware of the 
intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on ; and his little wife 
almost as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to me 
in her kind way that she would give a guinea, that she would, to 
see a certain couple made happy together ; that they were born for 
one another, that they were ; she was for having me go off to fetch 
Clive : but who was I to act as Hymen’s messenger ; or to interpose 
in such delicate family affairs 1 

All this while Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., remained absent in 
London, attending to his banking duties there, and pursuing the 
dismal inquiries which ended, in the ensuing Michaelmas term, in 
the famous suit of Newcome v. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing 
the plan which she had laid down for herself from the first, took 
entire charge of his children and house ; Lady Ann returned to her 
own family: never indeed having been of much use in her son’s 
dismal household. My wife talked to me of course about her 
pursuits and amusements at Newcome, in the ancestral hall which 
we have mentioned. The children played and ate their dinner 
(mine often partook of his infantine mutton in company with little 
Clara and the poor young heir of Newcome) in the room which had 
been called my Lady’s own, and in which her husband had locked 
her, forgetting that the conservatories were open, through which 
the hapless woman had fled. Next to this was the baronial library, 
a side of which was fitted with the gloomy books from Clapham, 


THE NEWCOMES 


645 


which old Mrs. Newcome had amassed ; rows of tracts, and 
missionary magazines, and dingy quarto volumes of worldly travel 
and history which that lady had admitted into her collection. 

Almost on the last day of our stay at Rosebury, the two young 
ladies bethought them of paying a visit to the neighbouring town of 
Newcome, to that old Mrs. Mason who has been mentioned in a 
foregoing page in some yet earlier chapter of our history. She was 
very old now, very faithful to the recollections of her own early 
time, and oblivious of yesterday. Thanks to Colonel Newcome’s 
bounty, she had lived in comfort for many a long year past ; and 
he was as much her boy now as in those early days of which 
we have given but an outline. There were Clive’s pictures of 
himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near which 
she sat in comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty 
supplied. 

Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcome, prompted thereto by 
the hints of her little maid, who was much younger, and had a 
more faithful memory than her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason 
would have forgotten the pheasants whose very tails decorated the 
chimney-glass, had not Keziah, the maid, reminded her that the 
young lady was the donor. Then she recollected her benefactor, 
and asked after her father, the Baronet ; and wondered, for her 
part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why 
his brother had the property ? Her father was a very good man ; 
though Mrs. Mason had heard he was not much liked in those 
parts. “Dead and gone, was he, poor man?” (This came in 
reply to a hint from Keziah, the attendant, bawled in the old 
lady’s ears, who was very deaf.) “Well, well, we must all go; 
and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what was the use of 
staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a good 
man deserves one,” added Mrs. Mason. 

The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the 
remark of Keziah, the maid, that “Mrs. Mason have a lost her 
memory.” And she asked wdio the other bonny lady was, and 
Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis was a friend of the Colonel’s 
and Clive’s. 

“ Oh, Clive’s friend ! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he 
was a dear pretty boy. He drew those pictures ; and he took off 
me in my cap, with my old cat and all — my poor old cat that’s 
buried this ever so long ago.” 

“ She has had a letter from the Colonel, Miss,” cries out Keziah. 
“ Haven’t you had a letter from the Colonel, mum? It came only 
yesterday.” And Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the 
ladies. They read as follows : — 


64-6 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ London, Feb. 12 , 184 — 

“ My dear old Mason, — I have just heard from a friend of 
mine who has been staying in your neighbourhood, that you are 
well and happy, and that you have been making inquiries after 
your young scapegrace, Tom Newcome, who is well and happy 
too, and who proposes to be happier still before any very long 
time is over. 

££ The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me 
in Belgium , at Brussels, where I have been living — a town near 
the place where the famous Battle of Waterloo was fought ; and as 
I had run away from Waterloo it followed me to England. 

“ I cannot come to Newcome just now to shake my dear old 
friend and nurse by the hand. I have business in London ; and 
there are those of my name living in Newcome who would not be 
very happy to see me and mine. 

££ But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will 
come with me ; and when we come I shall introduce a new friend 
to you, a very pretty little daughter-in-law , whom you must promise 
to love very much. She is a Scotch lassie , niece of my oldest 
friend, James Binnie, Esquire, of the Bengal Civil Service, who will 
give her a pretty bit of siller , and her present name is Miss Rosey 
Mackenzie. 

££ We shall send you a wedding cake soon, and a new gown for 
Keziah (to whom remember me), and when I am gone, my grand- 
children after me will hear what a dear friend you were to your 
affectionate Thomas Newcome.” 

Keziah must have thought that there was something between 
Clive and my wife, for when Laura had read the letter she laid 
it down on the table, and sitting down by it, and hiding her face 
in her hands, burst into tears. 

Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his 
father. Then she put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. ££ Come, 
my dear,” she said, ££ it is growing late, and I must go back to my 
children.” And she saluted Mrs. Mason and her maid in a very 
stately manner, and left them, leading my wife away, who was 
still exceedingly overcome. 

We could not stay long at Rosebury after that. When Madame 
de Montcontour heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. 
Pendennis’s emotion was renewed as we passed the gates of Newcome 
Park on our way to the railroad. 


CHAPTER LXII 


MR. AND MRS. CLIVE NEWCOME 

T HE friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last 
narrated sentimental occurrences had so -much increased, 
subsists very little impaired up to the present day. A 
lady with many domestic interests and increasing family, &c. &c., 
cannot be supposed to cultivate female intimacies out of doors with 
that ardour and eagerness which young spinsters exhibit in their 
intercourse ; but Laura, whose kind heart first led her to sympathise 
with her young friend in the latter’s days of distress and misfortune, 
has professed ever since a growing esteem for Ethel Newcome, and 
says, that the trials and perhaps grief which the young lady now 
had to undergo have brought out the noblest qualities of her dis- 
position. She is a very different person from the giddy and worldly 
girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days of her 
triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of 
her frivolities and her flirtations. 

Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had 
caused Laura’s gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl’s 
grief, but w T e respected it. The subject was never mentioned by 
the ladies between themselves, and even in her most intimate com- 
munications with her husband that gentleman is bound to say his 
wife maintained a tender reserve upon the point, nor cared to 
speculate upon a subject which her friend held sacred. I could not 
for my part but acquiesce in this reticence ; and, if Ethel felt regret 
and remorse, admire the dignity of her silence, and the sweet com- 
posure of her now changed and saddened demeanour. 

The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, 
and in these the younger lady described at length the duties, occu- 
pations, and pleasures of her new' life. She had quite broken with 
the world, and devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education 
of her brother’s orphan children. She educated herself in order to 
teach them. Her letters contain droll yet touching confessions of 
her own ignorance and her determination to overcome it. There 
was no lack of masters of all kinds in Newcome. She set herself 
to w r ork like a schoolgirl. The piano in the little room near the 


648 


THE NEWCOMES 


conservatory was thumped by Aunt Ethel until it became quite 
obedient to her, and yielded the sweetest music under her fingers. 
When she came to pay us a visit at Fairoaks some two years after- 
wards she played for our dancing children (our third is named 
Ethel, our second Helen, after one still more dear), and we were 
in admiration of her skill. There must have been the labour of 
many lonely nights when her little charges were at rest, and she 
and her sad thoughts sat up together, before she overcame the 
difficulties of the instrument so as to be able to soothe herself and 
to charm and delight her children. 

When the divorce was pronounced, which came in due form, 
though we know that Lady Highgate was not much happier 
than the luckless Lady Clara Newcome had been, Ethel’s dread 
was lest Sir Barnes should marry again, and by introducing 
a new mistress into his house should deprive her of the care of 
her children. 

Miss Newcome judged her brother rightly in that he would try 
to marry, but a noble young lady to whom he offered himself 
rejected him, to his surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergy- 
man with a small living, on which she elected to starve ; and the 
wealthy daughter of a neighbouring manufacturer whom he next 
proposed to honour with his gracious hand, fled from him with 
horror to the arms of her father, wondering how such a man as 
that should ever dare to propose marriage to an honest girl. Sir 
Barnes Newcome was much surprised at this outbreak of anger; 
he thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate man, a victim 
of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not improve 
his temper or tend to the happiness of his circle at home. Peevish- 
ness and selfish rage, quarrels with servants and governesses, and 
other domestic disquiet, Ethel had of course to bear from her, 
brother, but not actual personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of 
former days was subdued in her, but the haughty resolution re- 
mained which was more than a match for her brother’s cowardly 
tyranny ; besides, she was the mistress of sixty thousand pounds, 
and by many wily hints and piteous appeals to his sister Sir 
Barnes sought to secure this desirable sum of money for his poor 
dear unfortunate children. 

He professed to think that she was ruining herself for her 
younger brothers, whose expenses the young lady was defraying, 
this one at college, that in the army, and whose maintenance he 
thought might be amply defrayed out of their own little fortunes 
and his mother’s jointure : and, by ingeniously proving that a vast 
number of his household expenses were personal to Miss Newcome, 
and would never have been incurred but for her residence in his 


THE NEWCOMES 


649 

house, he subtracted for his own benefit no inconsiderable portion 
of her income. Thus the carriage-horses were hers, for what need 
had he, a miserable bachelor, of anything more than a riding-horse 
and brougham 1 A certain number of the domestics were hers, and 
as he could get no scoundrel of his own to stay with him, he took 
Miss Newcome’s servants. He would have had her pay the coals 
which burned in his grate, and the taxes due to our Sovereign Lady 
the Queen ; but in truth at the end of the year, with her domestic 
bounties and her charities round about Newcome, which daily in- 
creased as she became acquainted with her indigent neighbours, Miss 
Ethel, the heiress, was as poor as many poorer persons. 

Her charities increased daily with her means of knowing the 
people round about her. She gave much time to them and thought; 
visited from house to house, without ostentation ; was awe-stricken 
by that spectacle of the poverty which we have with us always, of 
which the sight rebukes our selfish griefs into silence, the thought 
compels us to charity, humility, and devotion. The priests of our 
various creeds, who elsewhere are doing battle together continually, 
lay down their arms in its presence and kneel before it ; subjugated 
by that overpowering master. Death, never dying out; hunger 
always crying, and children born to it day after day, — our young 
London lady, flying from the splendours and follies in which her 
life had been passed, found herself in the presence of these ; thread- 
ing darkling alleys which swarmed with wretched life ; sitting by 
naked beds, whither by God’s blessing she w T as sometimes enabled to 
carry a little comfort and consolation, and whence she came heart- 
stricken by the overpowering misery, or touched by the patient 
resignation of the new friends to whom fate had directed her. And 
here she met the priest upon his shrift, the homely missionary bearing 
his words of consolation, the quiet curate pacing his round, and was 
known to all these, and enabled now and again to help their people in 
trouble. “ Oh ! what good there is in this woman ! ” my wife would 
say to me as she laid one of Miss Ethel’s letters aside ; “ who would 
have thought this was the girl of your glaring London ball-room 1 ? If 
she has had grief to bear, how it has chastened and improved her!” 

And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel New- 
come has been growing in grace with my wife, poor Clive has been 
lapsing sadly out of favour. She has no patience with Clive. She 
drubs her little foot when his name is mentioned, and turns the 
subject. Whither are all the tears and pities fled now! Mrs. 
Laura has transferred all her regard to Ethel, and w T hen that lady’s 
ex-suitor writes to his old friend, or other news is had of him, Laura 
flies out in her usual tirades against the world, the horrid wicked 
selfish world, which spoils everybody who comes near it. What has 


650 THE NEWCOMES 

Clive done, in vain his apologist asks, that an old friend should be 
so angry with him ? 

She is not angry with him — not she. She only does not care 
about him. She wishes him no manner of harm — not the least, — 
only she has lost all interest in him. And the Colonel too, the poor 
good old Colonel, was actually in Mrs. Pendennis’s black books, and 
when he sent her the Brussels veil which we have heard of, she 
did not think it was a bargain at all — not particularly pretty ; 
in fact, rather dear at the money. When we met Mr. and Mrs. 
Clive Newcome in London, whither they came a few months after 
their marriage, and where Rosey appeared as pretty, happy, good- 
humoured a little blushing bride as eyes need behold, Mrs. Pen- 
dennis’s reception of her was quite a curiosity of decorum. “ I not 
receive her well ! ” cried Laura ; “ how on earth would you ha ve 
me receive her? I talked to her about everything, and she only 
answered yes or no. I showed her the children, and she did not 
seem to care. Her only conversation was about millinery and 
Brussels balls, and about her dress at the Drawing-room. The 
Drawing-room ! What business has she with such follies ? ” 

The fact is, that the Drawing-room was Tom Newcome’s affair, 
not his son’s, who was heartily ashamed of the figure he cut in that 
astounding costume which English private gentlemen are made to 
sport when they bend the knee before their Gracious Sovereign. 

Warrington roasted poor Clive upon the occasion, and compli- 
mented him with his usual gravity, until the young fellow blushed, 
and his father somewhat testily signified to our friend that his irony 
was not agreeable. “I suppose,” says the Colonel, with great 
hauteur, “ that there is nothing ridiculous in an English gentleman 
entertaining feelings of loyalty and testifying his respect to his 
Queen : and I presume that her Majesty knows best, and has a 
right to order in what dress her subjects shall appear before her; 
and I don’t think it’s kind of you, George, I say, I don’t think it’s 
kind of you to quiz my boy for doing his duty to his Queen and 
to his father too, sir, — for it was at my request that Clive went — 
and we went together, sir, to the Levde and then to the Drawing- 
room afterwards with Rosey, who was presented by the lady of my 
old friend, Sir Thomas de Boots, a lady of rank herself, and the 
wife of as brave an officer as ever drew a sword.” 

Warrington stammered an apology for his levity, but no ex- 
planations were satisfactory, and it was clear that George had 
wounded the feelings of our dear simple old friend. 

After Clive’s marriage, which was performed at Brussels, Uncle 
James and the lady, his sister, whom we have sometimes flippantly 
ventured to call the Campaigner, went off to perform that journey 


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651 


to Scotland which James had meditated for ten years past ; and, 
now little Rosey was made happy for life, to renew acquaintance 
with little Josey. The Colonel and his son and daughter-in-law 
came to London, not to the bachelor quarters, where we have seen 
them, but to an hotel, which they occupied until their new house 
could be provided for them, a sumptuous mansion in the Tybumian 
district, and one which became people of their station. 

We have been informed already what the Colonel’s income was, 
and have the gratification of knowing that it was very considerable. 
The simple gentleman who would dine off a crust, and wear a coat 
for ten years, desired that his children should have the best of 
everything : ordered about upholsterers, painters, carriage-makers, in 
his splendid Indian way; presented pretty Rosey with brilliant 
jewels for her introduction at Court, and was made happy by the 
sight of the blooming young creature decked in these magnificences, 
and admired by all his little circle. The old boys, the old generals, 
the old colonels, the old qui-his from the club, came and paid her 
their homage ; the directors’ ladies and the generals’ ladies called 
upon her, and feasted her at vast banquets served on sumptuous 
plate. Newcome purchased plate and gave banquets in return for 
these hospitalities. Mrs. Clive had a neat close carriage for 
evenings, and a splendid barouche to drive in the Park. It was 
pleasant to see this equipage at four o’clock of an afternoon, driving 
up to Bays’s, with Rosey most gorgeously attired reclining within ; 
and to behold the stately grace of the old gentleman as he stepped 
out to welcome his daughter-in-law, and the bow he made before he 
entered her carriage. Then they would drive round the Park ; 
round and round and round; and the old generals, and the old 
colonels, and old fogeys, and their ladies and daughters, would nod 
and smile out of their carriages as they crossed each other upon 
this charming career of pleasure. 

I confess that a dinner at the Colonel’s, now he appeared in 
all his magnificence, was awfully slow. No peaches could look 
fresher than Rosey ’s cheeks, — no damask was fairer than her pretty 
little shoulders. No one, I am sure, could be happier than she, 
but she did not impart her happiness to her friends; and replied 
chiefly by smiles to the conversation of the gentlemen at her side. 
It is true that these were for the most part elderly dignitaries, 
distinguished military officers with blue-black whiskers, retired old 
Indian judges, and the like, occupied with their victuals, and generally 
careless to please. But that solemn happiness of the Colonel, who 
shall depict it % — that look of affection with which he greeted his 
daughter as she entered, flounced to the waist, twinkling with in- 
numerable jewels, holding a dainty pocket-handkerchief, with smiling 


652 


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eyes, dimpled cheeks, and golden ringlets ! He would take her 
hand, or follow her about from group to group, exchanging precious 
observations about the weather, the Park, the Exhibition, nay, the 
Opera, for the old man actually went to the Opera with his little 
girl, and solemnly snoozed by her side in a white waistcoat. 

Very likely this was the happiest period of Thomas Newcome’s 
life. No woman (save one perhaps fifty years ago) had ever seemed so 
fond of him as that little girl. What pride he had in her, and what 
care he took of her ! If she was a little ailing, what anxiety and 
hurrying for doctors ! What droll letters came from James Binnie, 
and how they laughed over them; with what respectful attention 
he acquainted Mrs. Mack with everything that took place ; with 
what enthusiasm that Campaigner replied ! Josey’s husband called 
a special blessing upon his head in the church at Musselburgh ; and 
little Jo herself sent a tinful of Scotch bun to her darling sister, 
with a request from her husband that he might have a few shares 
in the famous Indian Company. 

The Company was in a highly flourishing condition, as you may 
suppose, when one of its directors, who at the same time was one 
of the honestest men alive, thought it was his duty to live in the 
splendour in which we now beheld him. Many wealthy City men 
did homage to him. His brother Hobson, though the Colonel had 
quarrelled with the chief of the firm, yet remained on amicable 
terms with Thomas Newcome, and shared and returned his banquets 
for a while. Charles Honeyman, we may be sure, was present 
at many of them, and smirked a blessing over the plenteous meal. 
The Colonel’s influence was such with Mr. Sherrick that he pleaded 
Charles’s cause with that gentleman, and actually brought to a 
successful termination that little love affair in which we have seen 
Miss Sherrick and Charles engaged. Mr. Sherrick was not disposed 
to part with much money during his lifetime — indeed he proved 
to Colonel Newcome that he was not so rich as the world supposed 
him. But by the Colonel’s interest, the chaplaincy of Bogglywallah 
was procured for the Rev. C. Honeyman, who now forms the delight 
of that flourishing station. 

All this while we have said little about Clive, who in truth 
was somehow in the background in this flourishing Newcome group. 
To please the best father in the world ; the kindest old friend who 
endowed his niece with the best part of his savings ; to settle that 
question about marriage and have an end of it, — Clive Newcome 
had taken a pretty and fond young girl, who respected and admired 
him beyond all men, and who heartily desired to make him happy. 
To do as much would not his father have stripped his coat from 
his back, — have put his head under Juggernaut’s chariot-wheel — 


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653 


have sacrificed any ease, comfort, or pleasure for the youngster’s 
benefit 1 ? One great passion he had had and closed the account 
of it : a worldly ambitious girl — how foolishly worshipped and 
passionately beloved no matter — had played with him for years; 
had flung him away when a dissolute suitor with a great fortune 
and title had offered himself. Was he to whine and despair because 
a jilt had fooled him 1 He had too much pride and courage for any 
such submission ; he would accept the lot in life which was offered 
to him, no undesirable one surely ; he would fulfil the wish of his 
father’s heart, and cheer his kind declining years. In this way 
the marriage was brought about. It was but a whisper to Rosey in 
the drawing-room, a start and a blush from the little girl as he 
took the little willing hand, a kiss for her from her delighted old 
father-in-law, a twinkle in good old James’s eyes, and double 
embrace from the Campaigner as she stood over them in a benedictory 
attitude, — expressing her surprise at an event for which she had 
been jockeying ever since she set eyes on young Newcome ; and 
calling upon Heaven to bless her children. So, as a good thing 
when it is to be done had best be done quickly, these worthy folks 
went off almost straightway to a clergyman, and were married out 
of hand — to the astonishment of Captains Hoby and Goby when 
they came to hear of the event. Well, my gallant young painter 
and friend of my boyhood ! if my wife chooses to be angry at your 
marriage, shall her husband not wish you happy ? Suppose we had 
married our first loves, others of us, were we the happier now 1 Ask 
Mr. Pendennis, who sulked in his tents when his Costigan, his 
Briseis, was ravished from him. Ask poor George Warrington, 
who had his own way, Heaven help him ! There was no need why 
Clive should turn monk because number one refused him ; and, 
that charmer removed, why he should not take to his heart number 
two. I am bound to say, that when I expressed these opinions to 
Mrs. Laura, she was more angry and provoked than ever. 

It is in the nature of such a simple soul as Thomas Newcome ' 
to see but one side of a question, and having once fixed Ethel’s 
worldliness in his mind, and her brother’s treason, to allow no 
argument of advocates of the other side to shake his displeasure. 
Hence the one or two appeals which Laura ventured to make on 
behalf of her friend were checked by the good Colonel with a stern 
negation. If Ethel was not guiltless, she could not make him see 
at least that she was not guilty. He dashed away all excuses and 
palliations. Exasperated as he was, he persisted in regarding the 
poor girl’s conduct in its most unfavourable light. “ She was 
rejected, and deservedly rejected, by the Marquis of Farintosh,” he 
broke out to me once, who was not indeed authorised to tell all I 


654 * 


THE NEWCOMES 


knew regarding the story : “ the whole town knows it ; all the 
clubs ring with it. I blush, sir, to think that my brother’s child 
should have brought such a stain upon our name.” In vain I told 
him that my wife, who knew all the circumstances much better, 
judged Miss Newcome far more favourably, and indeed greatly 
esteemed and loved her. “ Pshaw ! sir,” breaks out the indignant 
Colonel, “your wife is an innocent creature, who does not know 
the world as we men of experience do, — as I do, sir ; ” and would 
have no more of the discussion. There is no doubt about it, there 
was a coolness between my old friend’s father and us. 

As for Barnes Newcome, we gave up that worthy, and the 
Colonel showed him no mercy. He recalled words used by 
Warrington, which I have recorded in a former page, and vowed 
that he only watched for an opportunity to crush the miserable 
reptile. He hated Barnes as a loathsome traitor, coward, and 
criminal ; he made no secret of his opinion : and Clive, with the 
remembrance of former injuries, of dreadful heart-pangs ; the in- 
heritor of his father’s blood, his honesty of nature, and his im- 
petuous enmity against wrong ; shared to the full his sire’s antipathy 
against his cousin, and publicly expressed his scorn and contempt 
for him. About Ethel he would not speak. “ Perhaps what you 
say, Pen, is true,” he said. “ I hope it is. Pray God it is.” But 
his quivering lips and fierce countenance, wdien her name was 
mentioned or her defence attempted, showed that he too had come 
to think ill of her. “ As for her brother, as for that scoundrel,” 
he would say, clenching his fist, “ if ever I can punish him I will. 
I shouldn’t have the soul of a dog if ever I forgot the wrongs that 
have been done me by that vagabond. Forgiveness ? Pshaw ! 
Are you dangling to sermons, Pen, at your wife’s leading-strings'? 
Are you preaching that cant? There are some injuries that no 
honest man should forgive, and I shall be a rogue on the day I 
shake hands with that villain.” 

“ Clive has adopted the Iroquois ethics,” says George War- 
rington, smoking his pipe sententiously, “ rather than those which 
are at present received among us. I am not sure that something 
is not to be said, as against the Eastern, upon the Western, or 
Tomahawk, or Ojibbeway side of the question. I should not like,” 
he added, “ to be in a vendetta or feud, and to have you, Clive, and 
the old Colonel engaged against me.” 

“I would rather,” I said, “for my part, have half-a-dozen such ene- 
mies as Clive and the Colonel, than one like Barnes. You never know 
where or when that villain may hit you.” And before a very short 
period was over, Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., hit his two hostile 
kinsmen such a blow as one might expect from such a quarter. 


CHAPTER LXIII 


MRS. CLIVE AT HOME 


Clive and his father did not think fit to conceal their opinions 



regarding their kinsman, Barnes Newcome, and uttered them 


in many public places when Sir Barnes’s conduct was brought 
into question, we may be sure that their talk came to the Baronet’s 
ears, and did not improve his already angry feeling towards those 
gentlemen. For a while they had the best of the attack. The 
Colonel routed Barnes out of his accustomed club at Bays’s ; where 
also the gallant Sir Thomas de Boots expressed himself pretty 
openly with respect to the poor Baronet’s want of courage : the 
Colonel had bullied and browbeaten Barnes in the parlour of his 
own bank, and the story was naturally well known in the City; 
where it certainly was not pleasant for Sir Barnes, as he walked to 
’Change, to meet sometimes the scowls of the angry man of war, 
his uncle, striding down to the offices of the Bundelcund Bank, and 
armed with that terrible bamboo cane. 

But though his wife had undeniably run away after notorious 
ill-treatment from her husband ; though he had shown two white 
feathers in those unpleasant little affairs with his uncle and cousin ; 
though Sir Barnes Newcome was certainly neither amiable nor 
popular in the City of London, his reputation as a most intelligent 
man of business still stood ; the credit of his house was deservedly 
high, and people banked with him, and traded with him, in spite 
of faithless wives and hostile colonels. 

When the outbreak between Colonel Newcome and his nephew 
took place, it may be remembered that Mr. Hobson Newcome, the 
other partner of the firm of Hobson Brothers, waited upon Colonel 
Newcome, as one of the principal English directors of the B. B. C., 
and hoped that although private differences would, of course, oblige 
Thomas Newcome to cease all personal dealings with the bank of 
Hobson, the affairs of the Company in which he was interested 
ought not to suffer on this account; and that the Indian firm 
should continue dealing with Hobsons on the same footing as before. 
Mr. Hobson Newcome represented to the Colonel, in his jolly frank 
way, that whatever happened between the latter and his nephew 


656 


THE NEWCOMES 


Barnes, Thomas Newcome had still one friend in the house ; that 
the transactions between it and the Indian Company were mutually 
advantageous ; finally, that the manager of the Indian bank might 
continue to do business with Hobsons as before. So the B. B. C. 
sent its consignments to Hobson Brothers, and drew its bills, which 
were duly honoured by that firm. 

More than one of Colonel Newcome’s City acquaintances, 
among them his agent, Mr. Jolly, and his ingenuous friend, Mr. 
Sherrick, especially, hinted to Thomas Newcome to be very cautious 
in his dealings with Hobson Brothers, and keep a special care lest 
that house should play him an evil turn. They both told him 
that Barnes Newcome had said more than once, in answer to 
reports of the Colonel’s own speeches against Barnes, “I know 
that hot-headed, blundering Indian uncle of mine is furious against 
me, on account of an absurd private affair and misunderstanding, 
which he is too obstinate to see in the proper light. What is my 
return for the abuse and rant which he lavishes against me? I 
cannot forget that he is my grandfather’s son, an old man, utterly 
ignorant both of society and business here : and as he is interested 
in this Indian Banking Company, which must be preciously con- 
ducted when it appointed him as the guardian and overseer of its 
affairs in England, I do my very best to serve the Company, and 
I can tell you, its blundering, muddle-headed managers, black and 
white, owe no little to the assistance which they have had from our 
house. If they don’t like us, why do they go on dealing with us ? 
We don’t want them and their bills. We were a leading house fifty 
years before they were born, and shall continue to be so long after 
they come to an end.” Such was Barnes’s case, as stated by him- 
self. It was not a very bad one, or very unfairly stated, consider- 
ing the advocate. I believe he has always persisted in thinking 
that he never did his uncle any wrong. 

Mr. Jolly and Mr. Sherrick, then, both entreated Thomas 
Newcome to use his best endeavours, and bring the connection of 
the B. B. C. and Hobson Brothers to a speedy end. But Jolly was 
an interested party ; he and his friends would have had the agency 
of the B. B. C., and the profits thereof, which Hobsons had taken 
from them. Mr. Sherrick was an outside practitioner, a guerilla 
amongst regular merchants. The opinions of one and the other, 
though submitted by Thomas Newcome duly to his co-partners, the 
managers and London board of directors of the Bundelcimd Banking 
Company, were overruled by that assembly. 

They had their establishment and apartments in the City; they 
had their clerks and messengers, their managers’ room and board 
room, their meetings, where no doubt great quantities of letters were 


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657 


read, vast ledgers produced ; where Tom Newcome was voted into 
the chair, and voted out with thanks ; where speeches 'were made, 
and the affairs of the B. B. C. properly discussed. These subjects 
are mysterious, terrifying, unknown to me. I cannot pretend to 
describe them. Fred Bayham, I remember, used to be great in his 
knowledge of the affairs of the Bundelcund Banking Company. He 
talked of cotton, wool, copper, opium, indigo, Singapore, Manilla, 
China, Calcutta, Australia, with prodigious eloquence and fluency. 
His conversation was about millions. The most astounding para- 
graphs used to appear in the Fall Mall Gazette regarding the annual 
dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and to which he, and 
George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations 
were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this 
great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour 
at its expense ! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at 
these banquets ; the Prince, his son, taking but a modest part in 
the ceremonies, and sitting with us, his old cronies. 

All the gentlemen connected with the board, all those with whom 
the B. B. C. traded in London, paid Thomas Newcome extraordinary 
respect. His character for wealth was deservedly great, and of course 
multiplied by the tongue of Bumour. F. B. knew to a few millions 
of rupees, more or less, what the Colonel possessed, and what Clive 
would inherit. Thomas Newcome’s distinguished military services, 
his high bearing, lofty courtesy, simple but touching garrulity, — for 
the honest man talked much more now than he had been accustomed 
to do in former days, and was not insensible to the flattery which 
his wealth brought him ; — his reputation as a keen man of business, 
who had made his own fortune by operations equally prudent and 
spirited, and who might make the fortunes of hundreds of other 
people, brought the worthy Colonel a number of friends, and I 
promise you that the loudest huzzahs greeted his health when it 
was proposed at the Blackwall dinners. At the second annual 
dinner after Clive’s marriage some friends presented Mrs. Clive 
Newcome with a fine testimonial. There was a superb silver 
cocoa-nut tree, whereof the leaves were dexterously arranged for 
holding candles and pickles ; under the cocoa-nut was an Indian 
prince on a camel giving his hand to a cavalry officer on horse- 
back; a howitzer, a plough, a loom, a bale of cotton on which 
were the East India Company’s arms; a Brahmin, Britannia, and 
Commerce with a cornucopia, were grouped round the principal 
figures : and if you would see a noble account of this chaste and 
elegant specimen of British art, you are referred to the pages of 
the Fall Mall Gazette of that year, as well as to Fred Bayham ’s 
noble speech in the course of the evening when it was exhibited. 

8 2 T 


658 


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The East and its wars and its heroes, Assay e and Seringa patam 
(“ and Lord Lake and Laswaree, too,” calls out the Colonel, greatly 
elated), tiger-hunting, palanquins, Juggernaut, elephants, the burn- 
ing of widows — all passed before us in F. B.’s splendid oration. 
He spoke of the products of the Indian forest, the palm tree, the 
cocoa-nut tree, the banyan tree. Palms the Colonel had already 
brought back with him, — the palms of valour, won in the field of 
war (cheers). Cocoa-nut trees he had never seen, though he had 
heard wonders related regarding the milky contents of their fruit. 
Here at any rate was one tree of the kind, under the branches of 
which he humbly trusted often to repose — and, if he might be so 
bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing 
the excellence of the Coloners claret and the splendour of his hospi- 
tality, that he would prefer a cocoa-nut day at the Colonel’s to a 
banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F. B.’s speech went on, I 
remember J. J. eyeing the trophy, and the queer expression of 
his shrewd face. The health of British Artists was drunk a propos 
of this splendid specimen of their skill, and poor J. J. Ridley, Esquire, 
A.R.A., had scarce a word to say in return. He and Clive sat by 
one another, the latter very silent and gloomy. When J. J. and I 
met in the world, we talked about our friend, and it was easy for 
both of us to see that neither was satisfied with Clive’s condition. 

The fine house in Tyburnia was completed by this time, as 
gorgeous as money could make it. How different it was from the 
old Fitzroy Square mansion with its ramshackle furniture, and 
spoils of brokers’ shops, and Tottenham-court Road odds and ends ! 
An Oxford Street upholsterer had been let loose in the yet virgin 
chambers ; and that inventive genius had decorated them with all 
the wonders his fancy could devise. Roses and Cupids quivered 
on the ceilings, up to which golden arabesques crawled from the 
walls ; your face (handsome or otherwise) was reflected by countless 
looking-glasses, so multiplied and arranged as, as it were, to carry 
you into the next street. You trod on velvet, pausing with respect 
in the centre of the carpet, where Rosey’s cipher was worked in 
the sweet flowers which bear her name. What delightful crooked 
legs the chairs had ! What corner-cupboards there were filled with 
Dresden gimcracks, which it was a part of this little woman’s 
business in life to purchase ! What dtageres, and bonbonnikres, 
and chiffonnihres ! What awfully bad pastels there were on the 
walls ! What frightful Boucher and Lancret shepherds and 
shepherdesses leered over the portihres ! What velvet-bound 
volumes, mother-of-pearl albums, inkstands representing beasts of 
the field, prie-dieu chairs, and wonderful nicknacks I can re- 
collect ! There was the most magnificent piano, though Rosey 


THE NEWCOMES 


659 

seldom sang any of her six songs now; and when she kept her 
couch at a certain most interesting period, the good Colonel, ever 
anxious to procure amusement for his darling, asked whether she 
would not like a barrel-organ grinding fifty or sixty favourite pieces, 
which a bearer could turn 1 ? And he mentioned how Windus, of 
their regiment, who loved music exceedingly, had a very fine instru- 
ment of this kind out to Barrackpore in the year 1810, and relays 
of barrels by each ship with all the new tunes from Europe. The 
Testimonial took its place in the centre of Mrs. Clive’s table, 
surrounded by satellites of plate. The delectable parties were 
constantly gathered together, the grand barouche rolling in the 
Park, or stopping at the principal shops. Little Rosey bloomed 
in millinery, and was still the smiling little pet of her father-in- 
law, and poor Clive, in the midst of all these splendours, was 
gaunt, and sad, and silent ; listless at most times, bitter and 
savage at others, pleased only when he was out of the society 
which bored him, and in the company of George and J. J., the 
simple friends of his youth. 

His careworn look and altered appearance mollified my wife 
towards him — who had almost taken him again into favour. But 
she did not care for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel, somehow, grew 
cool towards us, and began to look askance upon the little band 
of Clive’s friends. It seemed as if there were two parties in the 
house. There was Clive’s set — J. J., the shrewd silent little 
painter ; Warrington, the cynic ; and the author of the present 
biography, who was, I believe, supposed to give himself con- 
temptuous airs, and to have become very high and mighty since 
his marriage. Then there was the great, numerous, and eminently 
respectable set, whose names were all registered in little Rosey’s 
little visiting-book, and to whose houses she drove round, duly 
delivering the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome and Colonel 
Newcome; the Generals and Colonels, the Judges and the Fogeys. 
The only man who kept well with both sides of the house was 
F. Bayham, Esq., who, having got into clover, remained in the 
enjoyment of that welcome pasture; who really loved Clive and 
the Colonel too, and had a hundred pleasant things and funny 
stories (the droll odd creature !) to tell to the little lady for whom 
we others could scarcely find a word. The old friends of the 
student days were not forgotten, but they did not seem to get 
on in the new house. The Misses Gandish came to one of Mrs. 
Clive’s balls, still in blue crape, still with ringlets on their 
wizened old foreheads, accompanying papa, with his sliirt-collars 
turned down — who gazed in mute wonder on the splendid scene. 
Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to dance, making woeful 


66 0 


THE NEWCOMES 


blunders, however, in the quadrille, while Clive, with some- 
thing like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss Zoe 
Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish over-eat and over-drink 
himself in the supper-room, and Clive cheered him by ordering a 
full length of Mrs. Clive Newcome, from his distinguished pencil. 
Never was seen a grander exhibition of white satin and jewels. 
Sinee, R.A., was furious at the preference shown to his rival. 

We had Sandy M‘Collop, too, at the party, who had returned 
from Rome, with his red beard, and his picture of the murder oi 
the Red Comyn, which made but a dim effect in the Octagon Room 
of the Royal Academy, where the bleeding agonies of the dying 
warrior were veiled in an unkind twilight. On Sandy and his 
brethren little Rosey looked rather coldly. She tossed up her little 
head in conversation with me, and gave me to understand that this 
party was only an omnium gatherum, not one of the select parties, 
from which Heaven defend us. “We are Poins, and Nym, and 
Pistol,” growled out George Warrington, as he strode away to finish 
the evening in Clive’s painting and smoking room. “Now Prince 
Hal is married, and shares the paternal throne, his Princess is 
ashamed of his brigand associates of former days.” She came and 
looked at us with a feeble little smile, as we sat smoking, and let 
the daylight in on us from the open door, and hinted to Mr. Clive 
that it was time to go to bed. 

So Clive Newcome lay in a bed of down and tossed and tumbled 
there. He went to fine dinners, and sat silent over them ; rode 
fine horses, and black Care jumped up behind the moody horseman. 
He was cut off in a great measure from the friends of his youth, or 
saw them by a kind of stealth and sufferance ; was a very lonely, 
poor fellow, I am afraid, now that people were testimonialising his 
wife, and many an old comrade growling at his haughtiness and 
prosperity. 

In former days, when his good father recognised the difference 
which fate, and time, and temper, had set between him and his 
son, we have seen with what a gentle acquiescence the old man 
submitted to his inevitable fortune, and how humbly he bore 
that stroke of separation which afflicted the boy lightly enough, but 
caused the loving sire so much pain. Then there was no bitterness 
between them, in spite of the fatal division ; but now, it seemed as if 
there was anger on Thomas Newcome’s part, because, though come 
together again, they were not united, though with every outward 
appliance of happiness Clive was not happy. What young man on 
earth could look for more 'i a sweet young wife, a handsome home, 
of which the only encumbrance was an old father, who would give 
his last drop of blood in his son’s behalf. And it was to bring 


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66 1 


about this end that Thomas Newcorne had toiled and had amassed 
a fortune ! Could not Clive, with his talents and education, 
go down once or twice a week to the City and take a decent 
part in the business by which his wealth was secured? He ap- 
peared at the various board-rooms and City conclaves, yawned at 
the meetings, and drew figures on the blotting-paper of the Company ; 
had no interest in its transactions, no heart in its affairs; went 
away and galloped his horse alone; or returned to his painting- 
room, put on his old velvet jacket, and worked with his palettes 
and brushes. Palettes and brushes ! Could he not give up these 
toys when he was called to a much higher station in the world ? 
Could he not go talk with Rosey; drive with Rosey, kind little 
soul, whose whole desire was to make him happy? Such thoughts 
as these, no doubt, darkened the Colonel’s mind, and deepened the 
furrows round his old eyes So it is, we judge men by our own 
standards ; judge our nearest and dearest often wrong. 

Many and many a time did Clive try and talk with the little 
Rosey, who chirped and prattled so gaily to his father. Many a 
time would she come and sit by his easel, and try her little powers 
to charm him, bring him little tales about their acquaintances, 
stories about this ball and that concert, practise artless smiles upon 
him, gentle little bouderies, tears, perhaps, followed by caresses and 
reconciliation. At the end of which he would return to his cigar ; 
and she, with a sigh and a heavy heart, to the good old man who 
had bidden her to go and talk with him. He used to feel that his 
father had sent her ; the thought came across him in their con- 
versations, and straightway his heart would shut up and his face 
grow gloomy. They were not made to mate with one another. 
That was the truth. 

Just before the testimonial, Mr. Clive was in constant attend- 
ance at home, and very careful and kind and happy with his 
wife, and the whole family party went very agreeably. Doctors 
were in constant attendance at Mrs. Clive Newcome’s door ; pro- 
digious care was taken by the good Colonel in wrapping her up 
and in putting her little feet on sofas, and in leading her to her 
carriage. The Campaigner came over in immense flurry from 
Edinburgh (where Uncle James was now very comfortably lodged 
in Picardy Place, with the most agreeable society round about 
him), and all this circle was in a word very close and happy and 
intimate ; but woe is me ! Thomas Newcome’s fondest hopes were 
disappointed this time ; his little grandson lived but to see the 
light and leave it : and sadly, sadly, those preparations were put 
away, those poor little robes and caps, those delicate muslins and 
cambrics over which many a care had been forgotten, many a fond 


662 


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prayer thought, if not uttered. Poor little Rosey ! she felt the 
grief very keenly; but she rallied from it very soon. In a very 
few months her cheeks were blooming and dimpling with smiles 
again, and she was telling us how her party was an omnium 
gatherum. 

The Campaigner had ere this returned to the scene of her 
northern exploits; not, I believe, entirely of the worthy woman’s 
own free will. Assuming the command of the household, whilst 
her daughter kept her sofa, Mrs. Mackenzie had set that establish- 
ment into uproar and mutiny. She had offended the butler, out- 
raged the housekeeper, wounded the sensibilities of the footman, 
insulted the doctor, and trampled on the inmost corns of the nurse. 
It was surprising what a change appeared in the Campaigner’s 
conduct, and how little, in former days, Colonel Newcome had 
known her. What the Emperor Napoleon the First said respecting 
his Russian enemies, might be applied to this lady, Grattez-la, and 
she appeared a Tartar. Clive and his father had a little comfort 
and conversation in conspiring against her. The old man never 
dared to try, but was pleased with the younger’s spirit and gallantry 
in the series of final actions which, commencing over poor little 
Rosey’s prostrate body in the dressing-room, were continued in the 
drawing-room, resumed with terrible vigour on the enemy’s part in 
the dining-room, and ended, to the triumph of the whole establish- 
ment, at the outside of the hall door. 

When the routed Tartar force had fled back to its native north, 
Rosey made a confession, which Clive told me afterwards, bursting 
with bitter laughter. “You and papa seem to be very much 
agitated,” she said. (Rosey called the Colonel papa in the absence 
of the Campaigner.) “ I do not mind it a bit, except just at first, 
when it made me a little nervous. Mamma used always to be so ; 
she used to scold and scold all day, both me and Josey, in Scotland, 
till grandmamma sent her away; and then in Fitzroy Square, and 
then in Brussels, she used to box my ears, and go into such tan- 
trums ; and I think,” adds Rosey, with one of her sweetest smiles, 
“ she had quarrelled with Uncle James before she came to us.” 

“She used to box Rosey’s ears,” roars out poor Clive, “and 
go into such tantrums, in Fitzroy Square and Brussels afterwards, 
and the pair would come down with their arms round each other’s 
waists, smirking and smiling as if they had done nothing but kiss 
each other all their mortal lives ! This is what we know about 
women — that is what we get, and find years afterwards, when 
we think w T e have married a smiling, artless young creature ! Are 
you all such hypocrites, Mrs. Pendennis'?” and he pulled his 
mustachios in his wrath. 


THE NEWCOMES 663 

“ Poor Clive ! ” says Laura, very kindly. “You would not 
have had her tell tales of her mother, would you 1 ” 

“ Oh, of course not,” breaks out Clive ; “ that is what you 
all say, and so you are hypocrites out of sheer virtue.” 

It was the first time Laura had called him Clive for many 
a day. She was becoming reconciled to him. We had our own 
opinion about the young fellow’s marriage. 

And, to sum up all, upon a casual rencontre with the young 
gentleman in question, whom we saw descending from a hansom at 
the steps of the “ Flag,” Pall Mall, I opined that dark thoughts of 
Hoby had entered into Clive Newcome’s mind. Othello-like, he 
scowled after that unconscious Cassio as the other passed into the 
club in his lacquered boots. 


CHAPTER LXIV 

ABSIT OMEN 


AT the first of the Blackwall festivals, Hobson Newcome was 
/■A present, in spite of the quarrel which had taken place 
between his elder brother and the chief of the firm of 
Hobson Brothers and Newcome. But it was the individual Barnes 
and the individual Thomas who had had a difference together ; the 
Bundelcund Bank was not at variance with its chief house of com- 
mission in London ; no man drank prosperity to the B. B. C., upon 
occasion of this festival, with greater fervour than Hobson New- 
come, and the manner in which he just slightly alluded, in his own 
little speech of thanks, to the notorious differences between Colonel 
Newcome and his nephew, praying that these might cease some 
day, and, meanwhile, that the confidence between the great Indian 
establishment and its London agents might never diminish, was 
appreciated and admired by six-and-thirty gentlemen, all brimful of 
claret and enthusiasm, and in that happy state of mind in which 
men appreciate and admire everything. 

At the second dinner, when the testimonial was presented, 
Hobson was not present. Nor did his name figure amongst those 
engraven on the trunk of Mr. Newcome’s allegorical silver cocoa-nut 
tree. As we travelled homewards in the omnibus, Fred Bayham 
noticed the circumstance to me. “ I have looked over the list of 
names,” says he, “not merely that on the trunk, sir, but the 
printed list ; it was rolled up and placed in one of the nests on the 
top of the tree. Why is Hobson’s name not there 1 — Ha ! it mis- 
likes me, Pendennis.” 

F. B., who was now very great about City affairs, discoursed 
about stocks and companies with immense learning, and gave me to 
understand that he had transacted one or two little operations in 
Capel Court on his own account, with great present, and still larger 
prospective advantages to himself. It is a fact that Mr. Ridley 
was paid, and that F. B.’s costume, though still eccentric, was 
comfortable, cleanly, and variegated. He occupied the apartments 
once tenanted by the amiable Honeyman. He lived in ease and 
comfort there. “You don’t suppose,” says he, “that the wretched 


THE NEWCOMES 


665 


stipend I draw from the Pall Mall Gazette enables me to maintain 
this kind of thing? F. B., sir, has a station in the world; F. B. 
moves among moneyers and City nobs, and eats kibobs with 
wealthy nabobs. He may marry, sir, and settle in life.” We 
cordially wished every worldly prosperity to the brave F. B. 

Happening to descry him one day in the Park, I remarked that 
his countenance wore an ominous and tragic appearance, which 
seemed to deepen as he neared me. I thought he had been toying 
affably with a nursery-maid the moment before, who stood with 
some of her little charges watching the yachts upon the Serpentine. 
Howbeit, espying my approach, F. B. strode away from the maiden 
and her innocent companions, and advanced to greet his old acquaint- 
ance, enveloping his face with shades of funereal gloom. 

“ Yon were the children of my good friend Colonel Huckaback, 
of the Bombay Marines ! Alas ! unconscious of their doom, the 
little infants play. I was watching them at their sports. There 
is a pleasing young woman in attendance upon the poor children. 
They were sailing their little boats upon the Serpentine; racing, 
and laughing, and making merry; and as I looked on, Master 
Hastings Huckaback’s boat went down ! Absit omen , Pendennis ! 
I was moved by the circumstance. F. B. hopes that the child’s 
father’s argosy may not meet with shipwreck ! ” 

“You mean the little yellow-faced man whom we met at 
Colonel Newcome’s?” says Mr. Pendennis. 

“I do, sir,” growled F. B. “You know that he is a brother 
director with our Colonel in the Bundelcund Bank % ” 

“ Gracious heavens ! ” I cried, in sincere anxiety, “ nothing has 
happened, I hope, to the Bundelcund Bank ? ” 

“No,” answers the other, “nothing has happened; the good 
ship is safe, sir, as yet. But she has narrowly escaped a great 
danger. Pendennis,” cries F. B., gripping my arm with great 
energy, “there was a traitor in her crew — she has weathered the 
storm nobly — who would have sent her on the rocks, sir, who 
would have scuttled her at midnight.” 

“ Pray drop your nautical metaphors, and tell me what you 
mean,” cries F. B.’s companion, and Bay ham continued his 
narration. 

“ Were you in the least conversant with City affairs,” he said, 
“ or did you deign to visit the spot where merchants mostly congre- 
gate, you would have heard the story, which was over the whole 
City yesterday, and spread dismay from Threadneedle Street to 
Leadenhall. The story is, that the firm of Hobson Brothers and 
Newcome yesterday refused acceptance of thirty thousand pounds’ 
worth of bills of the Bundelcund Banking Company of India. 


666 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ The news came like a thunderclap upon the London Board of 
Directors, who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson 
Brothers, and caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of 
the concern. The board-room was besieged by colonels and captains, 
widows and orphans ; within an hour after protest the bills were 
taken up, and you will see, in the City article of the Globe this 
very evening, an announcement that henceforward the house of 
Baines and Jolly, of Fog Court, will meet engagements of the 
Bundelcund Banking Company of India, being provided with ample 
funds to do honour to every possible liability of that Company. 
But the shares fell, sir, in consequence of the panic. I hope they 
will rally. I trust and believe they will rally. For our good 
Colonel’s sake, and that of his friends, for the sake of the innocent 
children sporting by the Serpentine yonder. 

“ I had my suspicions when they gave that testimonial,” said 
F. B. “ In my experience of life, sir, I always feel rather shy 
about testimonials, and when a party gets one, somehow look out 
to hear of his smashing the next month. Absit omen ! I will say 
again. I like not the going down of yonder little yacht.” 

The Globe sure enough contained a paragraph that evening 
announcing the occurrence which Mr. Bayham had described, and 
the temporary panic which it had occasioned, and containing an 
advertisement stating that Messrs. Baines and Jolly would henceforth 
act as agents of the Indian Company. Legal proceedings were 
presently threatened by the solicitors of the Company against the 
banking firm which had caused so much mischief. Mr. Hobson 
Newcome was absent abroad when the circumstance took place, and 
it was known that the protest of the bills was solely attributable 
to his nephew and partner. But after the break between the two 
firms, there was a rupture between Hobson’s family and Colonel 
Newcome. The exasperated Colonel vowed that his brother and 
his nephew were traitors alike, and would have no further dealings 
with one or the other. Even poor innocent Sam Neweome, coming 
up to London from Oxford, where he had been plucked, and offering 
a hand to Clive, was frowned away by our Colonel, who spoke in 
terms of great displeasure to his son for taking the least notice of 
the young traitor. 

Our Colonel was changed, changed in his heart, changed in his 
whole demeanour towards the world, and above all towards his 
son, for whom he had made so many kind sacrifices in his old days. 
We have said how, ever since Clive’s marriage, a tacit strife had 
been growing up between father and son. The boy’s evident un- 
happiness was like a reproach to his father. His very silence 
angered the old man. His want of confidence daily chafed and 


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667 


annoyed him. At the head of a large fortune, which he rightly 
persisted in spending, he felt angry with himself because he could 
not enjoy it, angry with his son, who should have helped him in 
the administration of his new estate, and who was but a listless, 
useless member of the little confederacy, a living protest against 
all the schemes of the good man’s past life. The catastrophe in 
the City again brought father and son together somewhat, and the 
vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes’s treason. Time was 
when the Colonel himself would have viewed his kinsman more 
charitably, but fate and circumstance had angered that originally 
friendly and gentle disposition ; hate and suspicion had mastered 
him, and if it cannot be said that his new life had changed him, 
at least it had brought out faults for which there had hitherto been 
no occasion, and qualities latent before. Do we know ourselves, 
or what good or evil circumstance may bring from us 1 Did Cain 
know, as he and his younger brother played round their mother’s 
knee, that the little hand which caressed Abel should one day grow 
larger, and seize a brand to slay him 1 Thrice fortunate he, to 
whom circumstance is made easy ; whom fate visits with gentle 
trial, and kindly Heaven keeps out of temptation. 

In the stage which the family feud now reached, and which the 
biographer of the Newcomes is bound to describe, there is one 
gentle moralist who gives her sentence decidedly against Clive’s 
father ; whilst, on the other hand, a rough philosopher and friend 
of mine, whose opinions used to have some weight with me, stoutly 
declares that they were right. “ War and Justice are good things,” 
says George Warrington, rattling his clenched fist on the table. 
“I maintain them, and the common sense of the world maintains 
them, against the preaching of all the Honeymans that ever puled 
from-the pulpit. I have not the least objection in life to a rogue 
being hung. When a scoundrel is whipped I am pleased, and say, 
serve him right. If any gentleman will horsewhip Sir Barnes 
Newcome, Baronet, I shall not be shocked, but, on the contrary, 
go home and order an extra mutton-chop for dinner.” 

‘*Ah! Revenge is wrong, Pen,” pleads the other counsellor. 
“Let alone that the wisest and best of all Judges has condemned 
it. It blackens the hearts of men. It distorts their views of right. 
It sets them to devise evil. It causes them to think unjustly of 
others. It is not the noblest return for injury, not even the 
bravest way of meeting it. The greatest courage is to bear perse- 
cution, not to answer when you are reviled, and when a wrong 
has been done you to forgive. I am sorry for what you call the 
Colonel’s triumph and his enemy’s humiliation. Let Barnes be as 
odious as you will, he ought never to have humiliated Ethel’s 


668 


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brother; but he is weak. Other gentlemen as well are weak, 
Mr. Pen, although you are so much cleverer than women. I have 
no patience with the Colonel, and I beg you to tell him, whether 
he asks you or not, that he has lost my good graces, and that I 
for one will not huzzah at what his friends and flatterers call his 
triumphs, and that I don’t think in this instance he has acted like 
the dear Colonel, and the good Colonel, and the good Christian, 
that I once thought him.” 

We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, 
and what caused two such different opinions respecting their con- 
duct from the two critics just named. The refusal of the London 
Banking House to accept the bills of the Great Indian Company 
of course affected very much the credit of that Company in this 
country. Sedative announcements were issued by the Directors in 
London ; brilliant accounts of the Company’s affairs abroad were 
published ; proof incontrovertible was given that the B. B. C. was 
never in so flourishing a state as at that time when Hobson Brothers 
had refused its drafts; but there could be no question that the 
Company had received a severe wound, and was deeply if not vitally 
injured by the conduct of the London firm. 

The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the 
shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realise. Why, out of the 
thirty names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive’s cocoa-nut tree no less 
than twenty deserters might be mentioned, or at least who would 
desert could they find an opportunity of doing so with arms and 
baggage. Wrathfully the good Colonel scratched the names of those 
faithless ones out of his daughter’s visiting-book ; haughtily he met 
them in the street : to desert the B. B. C. at the hour of peril was, 
in his idea, like applying for leave of absence on the eve of an 
action. He would not see that the question was not one of senti- 
ment at all, but of chances and arithmetic ; he would not hear with 
patience of men quitting the ship, as he called it. “ They may go, 
sir,” says he, “ but let them never more be officers of mine.” With 
scorn and indignation he paid off one or two timid friends, who were 
anxious to fly, and purchased their shares out of his own pocket. 
But his purse was not long enough for this kind of amusement 
What money he had was invested in the Company already, and his 
name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their 
late London Bankers had withdrawn. 

Those gentlemen, in the meanwhile, spoke of their differences 
with the Indian Bank as quite natural, and laughed at the absurd 
charges of personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcome publicly 
preferred. “Here is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon,” says Sir 
Barnes, “who knows no more about business than I do about cavalry 


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669 

tactics or Hindostanee ; who gets into a partnership along with 
other dragoons and Indian wiseacres, with some uncommonly wily 
old native practitioners; and they pay great dividends, and they 
set up a bank. Of course we will do these people’s business as 
long as we are covered, but I have always told their manager that 
we would run no risks whatever, and would close the account the 
very moment it did not suit us to keep it : and so we parted 
company six weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the 
Company, a panic which has been increased by Colonel Newcome’s 
absurd swagger and folly. He says I am his enemy ; enemy 
indeed ! So I am in private life, but what has that to do with 
business 1 In business begad, there are no friends and no enemies at 
all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of Temple Bar.” 

So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath 
in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be 
revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed 
for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, 
and put him to shame. 

When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said 
always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for 
indulging in their pretty little passion. What is sheer hate seems 
to the individual entertaining the sentiment so like indignant virtue, 
that he often indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds him- 
self for the exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcome, in his 
present desire for retaliation against Barnes, had known the real 
nature of his sentiments towards that worthy, his conduct would 
have been different, and we should have heard of no such active 
hostilities as ensued. 


CHAPTER LXV 

IN WHICH MRS. CLIVE COMES INTO HER FORTUNE 


I N speaking of the affairs of the B. B. C., Sir Barnes Newcome 
always took care to maintain his candid surprise relating to 
the proceedings of that Company. He set about evil reports 
against it ! He endeavour to do it a wrong — absurd ! If a friend 
were to ask him (and it was quite curious what a number did 
manage to ask him) whether he thought the Company was an 
advantageous investment, of course he would give an answer. He 
could not say conscientiously he thought so — never once had said so 
— in the time of their connection, which had been formed solely 
with a view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome 
Company; a dragoon Company; a Company of gentlemen accus- 
tomed to gunpowder, and fed on mulligatawny. He, forsooth, be 
hostile to it ! There were some Companies that required no 
enemies at all, and would be pretty sure to go to the deuce their 
own way. 

Thus, and with this amiable candour, spake Barnes, about a 
commercial speculation, the merits of which he had a right to 
canvass as well as any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, his 
conduct was characterised by a timidity which one would scarcely 
have expected from a gentleman of his florid, jolly countenance, 
active habits, and generally manly demeanour. He kept away 
from the cocoa-nut feast, as we have seen ; he protested privily to 
the Colonel that his private good-will continued undiminished ; but 
he was deeply grieved at the B. B. C. affair, which took place 
while he was on the Continent — confound the Continent, my wife 
would go — and which was entirely without his cognisance. The 
Colonel received his brother’s excuses, first with awful bows and 
ceremony, and finally with laughter. “ My good Hobson,” said he, 
with the most insufferable kindness, “ of course you intended to be 
friendly ; of course the affair was done without your knowledge. 
We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts 
— for these last fifty years past that I have known you and your 
brother, and my amiable nephew, the present commanding officer, 
has there been anything in your conduct that has led me to suppose 


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671 


you had ? ” and herewith Colonel Newcome burst out into a laugh. 
It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Worthy Hobson took his 
hat, and walked away, brushing it round and round, and looking 
very confused. The Colonel strode after him downstairs, and made 
him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did Hobson New- 
come set foot in that Tyburnian mansion. 

During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut 
figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel’s 
hospitalities were more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive’s toilettes 
more brilliant. Clive, in his confidential conversations with his 
friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City news of 
our well-informed friend F. B., I am sorry to say, his countenance 
became funereal. The B. B. C. shares, which had been at an 
immense premium twelve months since, were now slowly falling, 
falling. 

“ I wish,” said Mr. Sherrick to me, “ the Colonel would realise 
even now, like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, 
and brought a hundred thousand pounds with him.” 

“ Come out of the ship ! You little know the Colonel, Mr. 
Sherrick, if you think he will ever do that.” 

Mr. Ratray, though he had returned to Europe, gave the most 
cheering accounts of the B. B. C. It was in the most flourishing 
state. Shares sure to get up again. He had sold out entirely on 
account of his liver. Must come home — the doctor said so. 

Some months afterwards, another director, Mr. Hedges, came 
home. Both of these gentlemen, as we know, entertained the 
fashionable world, got seats in Parliament, purchased places in the 
country, and were greatly respected. Mr. Hedges came out, but 
his wealthy partner, Mr. McGaspey, entered into the B. B. C. The 
entry of Mr. McGaspey into the affairs of the Company did not 
seem to produce very great excitement in England. The shares 
slowly fell. However, there was a prodigious indigo crop. The 
London manager was in perfect good-humour. In spite of this and 
that, of defections, of unpleasantries, of unfavourable whispers, and 
doubtful friends — Thomas Newcome kept his head high, and his 
face was always kind and smiling, except when certain family 
enemies were mentioned, and he frowned like Jove in anger. 

We have seen how very fond little Rosey was of her mamma, 
of her uncle, James Binnie, and now of her papa, as she affection- 
ately styled Thomas Newcome. This affection, I am sure, the two 
gentlemen returned with all their hearts, and but that they were 
much too generous and simple-minded to entertain such a feeling, 
it may be wondered that the two good old boys were not a little 
jealous of one another. Howbeit it does not appear that they 


672 


THE NEWCOMES 


entertained such a feeling ; at least it never interrupted the kindly 
friendship between them, and Clive was regarded in the light of 
a son by both of them, and each contented himself with his moiety 
of the smiling little girl’s affection. 

As long as they were with her, the truth is, little Mrs. Clive 
was very fond of people, very docile, obedient, easily pleased, brisk, 
kind, and good-humoured. She charmed her two old friends with 
little songs, little smiles, little kind offices, little caresses; and 
having administered Thomas Newcome’s cigar to him in the daintiest, 
prettiest way, she would trip off to drive with James Binnie, or 
sit at his dinner, if he was indisposed, and be as gay, neat-handed, 
watchful, and attentive a child as any old gentleman could desire. 

She did not seem to be very sorry to part with mamma, a want 
of feeling which that lady bitterly deplored in her subsequent con- 
versation with her friends about Mrs Clive Newcome. Possibly 
there were reasons why Rosey should not be very much vexed at 
quitting mamma ; but surely she might have dropped a little tear 
as she took leave of kind, good old James Binnie. Not she. The 
gentleman’s voice faltered, but hers did not in the least. She kissed 
him on the face, all smiles, blushes, and happiness, and tripped into 
the railway-carriage with her husband and father-in-law at Brussels, 
leaving the poor old uncle very sad. Our women said, I know not 
why, that little Rosey had no heart at all. Women are accustomed 
to give such opinions respecting the wives of their newly married 
friends. I am bound to add (and I do so during Mr. Clive New- 
come’s absence from England, otherwise I should not like to venture 
upon the statement), that some men concur with the ladies’ opinion 
of Mrs. Clive. For instance, Captains Goby and Hoby declare that 
her treatment of the latter, her encouragement and desertion of him 
when Clive made his proposals, were shameful. 

At this time Rosey was in a pupillary state. A good, obedient 
little girl, her duty was to obey the wishes of her dear mamma. 
How show her sense of virtue and obedience better than by promptly 
and cheerfully obeying mamma, and at the orders of that experi- 
enced Campaigner, giving up Bobby Hoby, and going to England 
to a fine house, to be presented at Court, to have all sorts of 
pleasure with a handsome young husband and a kind father-in-law 
by her side? No wonder Rosey was not in a very active state of 
grief at parting from Uncle James. He strove to console himself 
with these considerations when he had returned to the empty house, 
where she had danced, and smiled, and warbled ; and he looked at 
the chair she sat in ; and at the great mirror which had so 
often reflected her fresh pretty face ; — the great callous mirror, 
which now only framed upon its shining sheet the turban, and the 


THE NEWCOMES 673 

ringlets, and the plump person, and the resolute smile of the old 
Campaigner. 

After that parting with her uncle at the Brussels railway, Rosey 
never again beheld him. He passed into the Campaigner’s keeping, 
from which alone he was rescued by the summons of pallid death. 
He met that summons like a philosopher ; rejected rather testily 
all the mortuary consolations which his nephew-in-law, Josey’s 
husband, thought proper to bring to his bedside; and uttered 
opinions which scandalised that divine. But as he left Mrs. M‘Craw 
only .£500, thrice that sum to his sister, and the remainder of his 
property to his beloved niece, Rosa Mackenzie, now Rosa Newcoine, 
let us trust that Dr. M‘Craw, hurt and angry at the ill-favour shown 
to his wife, his third young wife, his best beloved Josey, at the 
impatience with which the deceased had always received his, Dr. 
M ‘Craw’s, own sermons, — let us hope, I say, that the reverend 
gentleman was mistaken in his views respecting the present position 
of Mr. James Binnie’s soul ; and that Heaven may have some 
regions yet accessible to James, which Dr. M ‘Craw’s intellect has 
not yet explored. Look, gentlemen ! Does a week pass without 
the announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new 
star in the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet farther distance, 
and only now becoming visible to human ken though existent for 
ever and ever? So let us hope divine truths may be shining, and 
regions of light and love extant, which Geneva glasses cannot yet 
perceive, and are beyond the focus of Roman telescopes. 

I think Clive and the Colonel were more affected by the news 
of James’s death than Rosey, concerning whose wonderful strength 
of mind good Thomas Newcome discoursed to my Laura and me, 
when, fancying that my friend’s wife needed comfort and consola- 
tion, Mrs. Pendennis went to visit her. “ Of course we shall have 
no more parties this year,” sighed Rosey. She looked very pretty 
in her black dress. Clive, in his hearty way, said a hundred kind 
feeling things about the departed friend. Thomas Newcome’s 
recollections of him, and regret, were no less tender and sincere. 
“ See,” says he, “ how that dear child’s sense of duty makes her 
hide her feelings ! Her grief is most deep, but she wears a calm 
countenance. I see her looking sad in private, but I no sooner 
speak than she smiles.” “ I think,” said Laura, as we came away, 
“that Colonel Newcome performs all the courtship part of the 
marriage, and Clive, poor Clive, though he spoke very nobly and 
generously about Mr. Binnie, I am sure it is not his old friend’s 
death merely, which makes him so unhappy.” 

Poor Clive, by right of his wife, was now rich Clive ; the little 
lady having inherited from her kind relative no inconsiderable sum 
8 2u 


674 


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of money. In a very early part of this story, mention has been 
made of a small sum producing one hundred pounds a year, which 
Clive’s father had made over to the lad when he sent him from 
India. This little sum Mr. Clive had settled upon his wife before 
marriage, being indeed all he had of his own ; for the famous bank 
shares which his father presented to him, were only made over 
formally when the young man came to London after his marriage, 
and at the paternal request and order appeared as a most inefficient 
director of the B. B. C. Now Mrs. Newcome, of her own inheri- 
tance, possessed not only B. B. C. shares, but moneys in bank and 
shares in East India Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife 
had a seat in the assembly of East India shareholders, and a voice 
in the election of directors of that famous Company. I promise 
you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried 
her little head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of 
us. F. B. bent his most respectfully down before her; she sent 
him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more 
wore a cheerful countenance ; the clouds which gathered o’er the 
sun of Newcome were in the bosom of the ocean buried, Bay ham 
said, by James Binnie’s brilliant behaviour to his niece. 

Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in 
electing the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a 
director of its affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the 
Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army ? To hold this 
position of director used, up to very late days, to be the natural 
ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had 
often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly 
placed himself on the lists, and publicly announced his intention. 
His interest was rather powerful through the Indian Bank, of which 
he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were pro- 
prietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the 
B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in Leadenhall Street 
would naturally be beneficial to the former institution. Thomas 
Newcome’s prospectuses were issued accordingly, and his canvass 
received with tolerable favour. 

Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the 
field — a retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and large 
means, — and at the head of this gentleman’s committee appeared 
the names of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, very formidable person- 
ages at the East India House, with which the bank of Hobson 
Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the 
old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three 
stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her 
son Sir Brian, and her grandson Sir Barnes. 


THE NEWCOMES 


675 


War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and 
his nephew. The canvass on both sides was very hot and eager. 
The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not 
to come off yet for a while ; for aspirants to the honourable office 
of director used to announce their wishes years before they could be 
fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they 
finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel’s prospects were very fair, 
and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour the B. B. C. with 
the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta. The shares, 
still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel’s hopes with them, 
and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money 
in the transaction. 

We were sitting one day round the Colonel’s dinner-table ; it 
was not one of the cocoa-nut- tree days ; that emblem was locked up 
in the butler’s pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of 
state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, 
when scarcely anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and 
F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis ; and, the ladies having retired, 
we were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quite old days, 
before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us. 

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks 
with great gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. 
Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive, and so 
his eloquence was generally welcome. The canvass for the director- 
ship was talked over. The improved affairs of a certain great 
Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but one which F. B. 
would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, unite for ever 
the mother country to our great Indian possessions ; — the prosperity 
of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr. Bayham 
in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of 
that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not un- 
deserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected 
few opportunities for making speeches after dinner. 

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, 
perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. 
And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew — not 
from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called 
Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor; kissed the hem of his 
garment ; he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel’s 
son ; he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak 
ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity 
of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He revered 
the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof alto- 
gether against this constant regard and devotion from another. 


676 


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The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham’s 
suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact 
was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions 
than those of some other folks occasionally are. 

“ What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direc- 
tion,” says F. B., “is to get into Parliament. The House of 
Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court 
of Directors would help him in the House of Commons.” 

“ Most wisely said,” says Warrington. 

The Colonel declined. “ I have long had the House of Commons 
in my eye,” he said ; “ but not for me. I wanted my boy to go 
there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there.” 

“ I can’t speak,” says Clive, from his end of the table. “ I don’t 
understand about parties, like F. B. here.” 

“ I believe I do know a thing or two,” Mr. Bayham here politely 
interposes. 

“ And politics do not interest me in the least,” Clive sighs out, 
drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the 
other’s interruption. 

“ I wish I knew what would interest him,” his father whispers 
to me, who happened to be at his side. “ He never cares to be out 
of his painting-room ; and he doesn’t seem to be very happy even in 
there. I wish to God, Pen, I knew what had come over the boy.” 
I thought I knew ; but what was the use of telling, now there was 
no remedy. 

“ A dissolution is expected every day,” continued F. B. “ The 
papers are full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majority — 
cannot possibly go on, sir. I have it on the best authority ; and 
men who are anxious about their seats are writing to their con- 
stituents, or are subscribing at missionary meetings, or are gone 
down lecturing at Athenaeums, and that sort of thing.” 

Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than 
the occasion of the speech of F. B. seemed to warrant ; and the 
Colonel, turning round with some dignity, asked the cause of George’s 
amusement. 

“What do you think your darling, Sir Barnes Newcome 
Newcome, has been doing during the recess'?” cries Warrington. 
“ I had a letter this morning from my liberal and punctual employer, 
Thomas Potts, Esquire, of the Newcome Independent , who states, 
in language scarcely respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome 
is trying to come the religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He 
professes to be stricken down with grief on account of late family 
circumstances ; wears black, and puts on the most piteous aspect, 
and asks ministers of various denominations to tea with him ; and 


THE NEWCOMES 


677 


the last announcement is the most stupendous of all. Stop, I have 
it in my greatcoat.” And, ringing the bell, George orders a servant 
to bring him a newspaper from his greatcoat pocket. “ Here it 
is, actually in print,” Warrington continues, and reads to us : — 
“‘Newcome Athenaeum. 1. For the benefit of the Newcome 
Orphan Children’s Home, and 2. for the benefit of the Newcome 
Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes 
Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday 
the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No 1. The Poetry of Child- 
hood : Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor. No 2. The 
Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections : Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. 
Threepence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use 
of the above two admirable societies.’ Potts wants me to go down and 
hear him. He has an eye to business. He has had a quarrel with 
Sir Barnes, and wants me to go down and hear him, and smash him, 
he kindly says. Let us go down, Clive. You shall draw your 
cousin as you have drawn his villainous little mug a hundred times 
before ; and I will do the smashing part, and we will have some 
fun out of the transaction.” 

“ Besides, Florae will be in the country ; going to Rosebury is 
a journey worth the taking, I can tell you ; and we have old Mrs. 
Mason to go and see, who sighs after you, Colonel. My wife went 
to see her,” remarks Mr. Pendennis, “and ” 

“ And Miss Newcome, I know,” says the Colonel. 

“ She is away at Brighton, with her little charges, for sea air. 
My wife heard from her to-day.” 

“ Oh, indeed. Mrs. Pendennis corresponds with her 1 ” says 
our host, darkling under his eyebrows; and, at this moment, my 
neighbour, F. B., is kind enough to scrunch my foot under the table 
with the weight of his heel, as much as to warn me, by an appeal 
to my own corns, to avoid treading on so delicate a subject in that 
house. “Yes,” said I, in spite, perhaps in consequence, of this 
interruption. “ My wife does correspond with Miss Ethel, who is 
a noble creature, and whom those who know her know how to love 
and admire. She is very much changed since you knew her, 
Colonel Newcome ; since the misfortunes in Sir Barnes’s family, 
and the differences between you and him. Very much changed and 
very much improved. Ask my wife about her, who knows her 
most intimately, and hears from her constantly.” 

“ Very likely, very likely,” cried the Colonel hurriedly. “ I 
hope she is improved, with all my heart. I am sure there was 
room for it. Gentlemen, shall we go up to the ladies and have 
some coffee?” And herewith the colloquy ended, and the party 
ascended to the drawing-room. 


678 


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The party ascended to the drawing-room, where no doubt both 
the ladies were pleased by the invasion which ended their talk. 
My wife and the Colonel talked apart, and I saw the latter looking 
gloomy, and the former pleading very eagerly, and using a great 
deal of action, as the little hands are wont to do when the mistress’s 
heart is very much moved. I was sure she was pleading Ethel’s 
cause with her uncle. 

So indeed she was. And Mr. George, too, knew what her 
thoughts were. “ Look at her ! ” he said to me. “ Don’t you see 
what she is doing 1 ? She believes in that girl whom you all said 
Clive took a fancy to before he married his present little placid 
wife ; a nice little simple creature, who is worth a dozen Ethels.” 

“Simple certainly/' says Mr. P., with a shrug of the shoulder. 

“ A simpleton of twenty is better than a roue of twenty. It is 
better not to have thought at all, than to have thought such things 
as must go through a girl’s mind whose life is passed in jilting and 
being jilted ; whose eyes, as soon as they are opened, are turned to 
the main chance, and are taught to leer at an earl, to languish at a 
marquis, and to grow blind before a commoner. I don’t know much 
about fashionable life. Heaven help us ! (you young Brummel ! I 
see the reproach in your face !) Why, sir, it absolutely appears to 
me as if this little hop-o’-my-thumb of a creature has begun to give 
herself airs since her marriage and her carriage Do you know, I 
rather thought she patronised me 'l Are all women spoiled by their 
contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed off in the market 1 
I know one who seems to me to remain pure ! to be sure I only 
know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan our laundress, 
and my sisters at home, who don’t count. But that Miss Newcome 
to whom once you introduced me ? Oh, the cockatrice ! only that 
poison don’t affect your wife, the other would kill her. I hope the 
Colonel will not believe a word which Laura says.” And my wife’s 
tete-a-tete with our host coming to an end about this time, Mr. 
Warrington in high spirits goes up to the ladies, recapitulates the 
news of Barnes’s lecture, recites “ How doth the little busy bee,” 
and gives a quasi-satirical comment upon that well-known poem, 
which bewilders Mrs. Clive, until, set on by the laughter of the rest 
of the audience, she laughs very freely at that odd man, and calls 
him “ you droll satirical creature you ! ” and says “ she never was 
so much amused in her life. Were you, Mrs. Pendennis'?” • 

Meanwhile Clive, who has been sitting apart moodily biting 
his nails, not listening to F. B.’s remarks, has broken into a laugh 
once or twice, and gone to a writing-book, on which, whilst George 
is still disserting, Clive is drawing. 

At the end of the other’s speech, F. B. goes up to the draughts- 


THE NEWCOMES 


679 

man, looks over his shoulder, makes one or two violent efforts as 
of inward convulsion, and finally explodes in an enormous guffaw. 
“ It’s capital ! By Jove, it’s capital ! Sir Barnes would never 
dare to face his constituents with that picture of him hung up in 
Newcome ! ” 

And F. B. holds up the drawing, at which we all laugh except 
Laura. As for the Colonel, he paces up and down the room, hold- 
ing the sketch close to his eyes, holding it away from him, patting 
it, clapping his son delightedly on the shoulder. “ Capital ! capital ! 
We’ll have the picture printed, by Jove, sir; show vice its own 
image ; and shame the viper in his own nest, sir. That’s what 
we will.” 

Mrs. Pendennis came away with rather a heavy heart from this 
party. She chose to interest herself about the right or wrong of 
her friends ; and her mind was disturbed by the Colonel’s vindictive 
spirit. On the subsequent day we had occasion to visit our friend 
J. J. (who was completing the sweetest little picture, No. 263 in 
the Exhibition, “ Portrait of a Lady and Child ”), and we found 
that Clive had been with the painter that morning likewise ; and 
that J. J. was acquainted with his scheme. That he did not 
approve of it we could read in the artist’s grave countenance. 
“Nor does Clive approve of it either!” cried Ridley, with greater 
eagerness than he usually displayed, and more openness than he 
was accustomed to exhibit in judging unfavourably of his friends. 

“ Among them they have taken him away from his art,” Ridley 
said. “ They don’t understand him when he talks about it ; they 
despise him for pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? my 
parents despised it too, and my father was not a grand gentleman 
like the Colonel, Mrs. Pendennis. Ah ! why did the Colonel ever 
grow rich ? Why had not Clive to work for his bread as I have ? 
He would have done something that was worthy of him then ; now 
his time must be spent in dancing attendance at balls and operas, and 
yawning at City board-rooms. They call that business ; they think 
he is idling when he comes here, poor fellow ! As if life was long 
enough for our art ; and the best labour we can give, good enough 
for it ! He went away groaning this morning, and quite saddened 
in spirits. The Colonel wants to set up himself for Parliament, 
or to set Clive up ; but he says he won’t. I hope he won’t : do 
not you, Mrs. Pendennis ? ” 

The painter turned as he spoke ; and the bright northern light 
which fell upon the sitter’s head was intercepted, and lighted up 
his own as he addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his 
pale thoughtful face, and long locks, and eager brown eyes. The 


680 


THE NEWCOMES 


palette on his arm was a great shield painted of many colours : he 
carried his maul-stick and a sheaf of brushes along with it, the 
weapons of his glorious but harmless war. With these he achieves 
conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious : with that 
he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition, temptation ! 
Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain the 
mastery over him ; selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. Art 
is truth : and truth is religion ; and its study and practice a daily 
work of pious duty. What are the world’s struggles, brawls, suc- 
cesses, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling 1 ? See, twinkling 
in the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies 
of the graceful victories which he has won — sweet flowers of fancy 
reared by him — kind shapes of beauty which he has devised and 
moulded. The world enters into the artist’s studio, and scornfully 
bids him a price for his genius, or makes dull pretence to admire 
it. What know you of his art 1 ? You cannot read the alphabet 
of that sacred book, good old Thomas Newcome ! What can you 
tell of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations'? Between his two 
best-beloved mistresses, poor Clive’s luckless father somehow inter- 
poses ; and with sorrowful, even angry protests. In place of Art 
the Colonel brings him a ledger ; and in lieu of first love, shows 
him Rosey. 

No wonder that Clive hangs his head ; rebels sometimes, de- 
sponds always ; he has positively determined to refuse to stand for 
Newcome, Ridley says. Laura is glad of his refusal, and begins 
to think of him once more as of the Clive of old days. 


CHAPTER LXVI 


IN WHICH THE COLONEL AND THE NEWCOME ATHENJEUM 
ARE BOTH LECTURED 

T breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little 



entertainment to which we were bidden in the last chapter, 


1 * Colonel Newcome was full of the projected invasion of 

Barnes’s territories, and delighted to think that there was an 
opportunity of at last humiliating that rascal. 

“ Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa,” cries Rosey, 
from behind her tea-urn ; “ that is, you said you thought papa 
judged him too harshly ; you know you did, this morning ! ” And 
from her husband’s angry glances, she flies to his father’s for 
protection. Those were even fiercer than Clive’s. Revenge flashed 
from beneath Thomas Newcome’s grizzled eyebrows, and glanced 
in the direction where Clive sat. Then the Colonel’s face flushed 
up, and he cast his eyes down towards his teacup, which he lifted 
with a trembling hand. The father and son loved each other so, 
that each was afraid of the other. A war between two such men 
is dreadful ; pretty little pink-faced Rosey, in a sweet little morn- 
ing cap and ribands, her pretty little fingers twinkling with a 
score of rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn, which re- 
flected her pretty little pink baby face. Little artless creature ! 
what did she know of the dreadful wounds which her little words 
inflicted in the one generous breast and the other ? 

“My boy’s heart is gone from me,” thinks poor Thomas New- 
come; “our family is insulted, our enterprises ruined, by that 
traitor, and my son is not even angry ! he does not care for the 
success of our plans — for the honour of our name even ; I make him 
a position of which any young man in England might be proud, 
and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it.” 

“My wife appeals to my father,” thinks poor Clive; “it is 
from him she asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the 
riband in her cap, or any other transaction in our lives, she takes 
her colour from his opinion, and goes to him for advice, and I have 
to wait till it is given, and conform myself to it. If I differ from 
the dear old father, I wound him ; if I yield up my opinion, as I 


682 


THE NEWCOMES 


do always, it is with a bad grace, and I wound him still. With 
the best intentions in the world, what a slave’s life it is that he 
has made for me ! ” 

“ How interested you are in your papers ! ” resumes the sprightly 
Rosey. “What can you find in those horrid politics?” Both 
gentlemen are looking at their papers with all their might, and no 
doubt cannot see one single word which those brilliant and witty 
leading articles contain. 

“ Clive is like you, Rosey,” says the Colonel, laying his paper 
down, “ and does not care for politics.” 

“ He only cares for pictures, papa,” says Mrs. Clive. “ He 
would not drive with me yesterday in the Park, but spent hours 
in his room, while you were toiling in the City, poor papa ! — spent 
hours painting a horrid beggar-man dressed up as a monk. And 
this morning he got up quite early, quite early, and has been out 
ever so long, and only came in for breakfast just now ! just before 
the bell rung.” 

“I like a ride before breakfast,” says Clive. 

“ A ride ! I know where you have been, sir ! He goes away, 
morning after morning, to that little Mr. Ridley’s — his chum, papa, 
and he comes back with his hands all over horrid paint. He did 
this morning : you know you did, Clive.” 

“ I did not keep any one waiting, Rosej r ,” says Clive. “ I like 
to have two or three hours at my painting when I can spare them.” 
Indeed, the poor fellow used so to run away of summer mornings 
for Ridley’s instructions, and gallop home again, so as to be in 
time for the family meal. 

“ Yes,” cries Rosey, tossing up the cap and ribands, “ he gets 
up so early in the morning, that at night he falls asleep after 
dinner ; very pleasant and polite, isn’t he, papa ? ” 

“ I am up betimes too, my dear,” says the Colonel (many and 
many a time he must have heard Clive as he left the house) ; 
“I have a great many letters to write, affairs of the greatest 
importance to examine and conduct. Mr. Betts from the City 
is often with me for hours before I come down to your breakfast- 
table. A man who has the affairs of such a great bank as ours 
to look to, must be up with the lark. We are all early risers 
in India.” 

“You dear kind papa ! ” says little Rosey, with unfeigned 
admiration ; and she puts out one of the plump white little 
jewelled hands, and pats the lean brown paw of the Colonel 
which is nearest to her. 

“ Is Ridley’s picture getting on well, Clive ? ” asks the Colonel, 
trying to interest himself about Ridley and his picture. 


THE NEWCOMES 683 

“Very well ; it is beautiful ; he has sold it for a great price ; 
they must make him an academician next year/’ replies Clive. 

“ A most industrious and meritorious young man ; he deserves 
every honour that may happen to him,’' says the old soldier. 
“ Rosey, my dear, it is time you should ask Mr. Ridley to dinner, 
and Mr. Smee, and some of those gentlemen. We will drive this 
afternoon and see your portrait.” 

“ Clive does not go to sleep after dinner when Mr. Ridley comes 
here,” cries Rosey. 

“ No ; I think it is my turn then,” says the Colonel, with a 
glance of kindness. The anger has disappeared from under his 
brows ; at that moment the menaced battle is postponed. 

“ And yet I know that it must come,” says poor Clive, telling 
me the story as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the 
Park. “ The Colonel and I are walking on a mine, and that poor 
little wife of mine is perpetually flinging little shells to fire it. 
I sometimes wish it were blown up, and I were done for, Pen. I 
don’t think my widow would break her heart about me. No; 
I have no right to say that ; it's a shame to say that ; she tries 
her very best to please me, poor little dear ! It’s the fault of my 
temper, perhaps, that she can’t. But neither understands me, 
don’t you see ? The Colonel can’t help thinking I am a degraded 
being, because I am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, he 
patronises Ridley ; a man of genius, whom those sentries ought 
to salute, by Jove, sir, when he passes. Ridley patronised by an 
old officer of Indian dragoons, a little bit of a Rosey, and a fellow 
who is not fit to lay his palette for him ! I want sometimes to 
ask J. J.’s pardon, after the Colonel has been talking to him in his 
confounded condescending way, uttering some awful bosh about 
the fine arts. Rosey follows him, and trips round J. J.’s studio, 
and pretends to admire, and says, £ How soft ! how sweet ! ’ 
recalling some of mamma-in -law’s dreadful expressions, which 
make me shudder when I hear them. If my poor old father had 
a confidant into whose arm he could hook his own, and whom he 
could pester with his family griefs as I do you, the dear old boy 
would have his dreary story to tell too. I hate banks, bankers, 
Bundelcund, indigo, cotton, and the whole business. I go to that 
confounded board, and never hear one syllable that the fellows are 
talking about. I sit there because he wishes me to sit there. 
Don’t you think he sees that my heart is out of the business ; that 
I would rather be at home in my painting-room'? We don’t under- 
stand each other, but we feel each other as it were by instinct. 
Each thinks in his own way, but knows what the other is thinking. 
We fight mute battles, don’t you see *? and our thoughts, though we 


684 


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don’t express them, are perceptible to one another, and come out 
from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and meet, and fight, 
and strike, and wound.” 

Of course Clive’s confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor 
fellow was, and commiserated his fatal but natural condition. The 
little ills of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. 
What would the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, 
and the applause of one’s countrymen, or the loveliest and best-beloved 
woman, — of any glory, and happiness, or good-fortune, avail to a 
gentleman, for instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with 
the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles 
inside it 1 ? All fame and happiness would disappear, and plunge down 
that shoe. All life would rankle round those little nails. I strove, 
by such philosophic sedatives as confidants are wont to apply on 
these occasions, to soothe my poor friend’s anger and pain ; and 
I dare say the little nails hurt the patient just as much as before. 

Clive pursued his lugubrious talk through the Park, and con- 
tinued it as far as the modest-furnished house which we then occu- 
pied in the Pimlico region. It so happened that the Colonel and Mrs. 
Clive also called upon us that day, and found this culprit in Laura’s 
drawing-room, when they entered it, descending out of that splendid 
barouche in which we have already shown Mrs. Clive to the public. 

“ He has not been here for months before; nor have you, Posey ; 
nor have you, Colonel; though we have smothered our indignation, and 
been to dine with you, and to call, ever so many times ! ” cries Laura. 

The Colonel pleaded his business engagements ; Rosa, that little 
woman of the world, had a thousand calls to make, and who knows 
how much to do, since she came out. She had been to fetch papa 
at Bays’s, and the porter had told the Colonel that Mr. Clive and 
Mr. Pendennis had just left the club together. 

“ Clive scarcely ever drives with me,” says Rosa; “papa almost 
always does.” 

“Rosey’s is such a swell carriage, that I feel ashamed,” says 
Clive. 

“I don’t understand you young men. I don’t see why you 
need be ashamed to go on the Course with your wife in her carriage, 
Clive,” remarks the Colonel. 

“ The Course ! the Course is at Calcutta, papa ! ” cries Rosey. 
“ We drive in the Park.” 

“We have a park at Barrackpore too, my dear,” says papa. 

“ And he calls his grooms saices ! He said he was going to 
send away a saice for being tipsy, and I did not know in the least 
what he could mean, Laura ! ” 

“Mr. Newcome ! you must go and drive on the Course with 


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685 


Rosa, now ; and the Colonel must sit and talk with me, whom he 
has not been to see for such a long time.” Clive presently went oft' 
in state by Rosey’s side, and then Laura showed Colonel Newcome 
his beautiful white cashmere shawl round a successor of that little 
person who had first been wrapped in that web, now a stout young 
gentleman whose noise could be clearly heard in the upper regions. 

“ I wish you could come down with us, Arthur, upon our elec- 
tioneering visit.” 

“ That of which you were talking last night 1 Are you bent 
upon it 'l ” 

“Yes, I am determined on it.” 

Laura heard a child’s cry at this moment, and left the room with 
a parting glance at her husband, who in fact had talked over the 
matter with Mrs. Pendennis, and agreed with her in opinion. 

As the Colonel had opened the question, I ventured to make a 
respectful remonstrance against the scheme. Vindictiveness on the 
part of a man so simple and generous, so fair and noble in all his 
dealings as Thomas Newcoine, appeared in my mind unworthy of 
him. Surely his kinsman had sorrow and humiliation enough 
already at home. Barnes’s further punishment, we thought, might 
be left to time, to remorse, to the Judge of right and wrong ; who 
better understands than we can do our causes and temptations to- 
wards evil actions, who reserves the sentence for His own tribunal. 
But when angered, the best of us mistake our own motives, as we 
do those of the enemy who inflames us. What may be private 
revenge, we take to be indignant virtue, and just revolt against 
wrong. The Colonel would not hear of counsels of moderation, such 
as I bore him from a sweet Christian pleader. “ Remorse ! ” he 
cried out with a laugh, “that villain will never feel it until he is 
tied up and whipped at the cart’s tail ! Time change that rogue ! 
Unless he is wholesomely punished, he will grow a greater scoundrel 
every year. I am inclined to think, sir,” says he, his honest brows 
darkling as he looked towards me, “that you too are spoiled by 
this wicked world, and these heartless, fashionable, fine people. 
You wish to live well with the enemy, and with us too, Pendennis. 
It can’t be. He who is not with us is against us. I very much 
fear, sir, that the women, the women, you understand, have been 
talking you over. Do not let us speak any more about this subject, 
for I don’t wish that my son, and my son’s old friend, should have 
a quarrel.” His face became red, his voice quivered with agitation, 
and he looked with glances which I was pained to behold in those 
kind old eyes : not because liis wrath and suspicion visited myself, 
but because an impartial witness, nay, a friend to Thomas Newcome 
in that family quarrel, I grieved to think that a generous heart was 


686 


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led astray, and to see a good man do wrong. So with no more 
thanks for his interference than a man usually gets who meddles in 
domestic strifes, the present luckless advocate ceased pleading. 

To be sure, the Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did 
not take the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these : 
he was for war a outrance with Barnes Newcome ; for keeping no 
terms with such a villain. He found a pleasure in hunting him 
and whipping him. “ Barnes ought to be punished,” George said, 
“ for his poor wife’s misfortune : it was Barnes’s infernal cruelty, 
wickedness, selfishness, which had driven her into misery and 
wrong.” Mr. Warrington went down to Newcome, and was present 
at that lecture whereof mention has been made in a preceding 
chapter. I am afraid his behaviour was very indecorous : he 
laughed at the pathetic allusions of the respected member for 
Newcome; he sneered at the sublime passages; he wrote an awful 
critique in the Newcome Independent two days after, whereof the 
irony was so subtle, that half the readers of the paper mistook his 
grave scorn for respect, and his jibes for praise. 

Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de- 
camp, were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes’s oration was 
delivered. At first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel 
visited the place for the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and 
pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who was now not long to enjoy his bounty, 
and so old as scarcely to know her benefactor. Only after her sleep, 
or when the sun warmed her and the old wine with which he supplied 
her, was the good old woman able to recognise her Colonel. She 
mingled father and son together in her mind. A lady who now 
often came in to her, thought she was wandering in her talk, when 
the poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy ; 
and then the attendant told Miss Newcome that such a visit had 
actually taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and his father 
had been in that room, and occupied the chair where she sat. 
“ The young lady was taken quite ill, and seemed ready to faint 
almost,” Mrs. Mason’s servant and spokeswoman told Colonel New- 
come when that gentleman arrived, shortly after Ethel’s departure, 
to see his old nurse. “ Indeed ! he was very sorry.” The maid 
told many stories about Miss Newcome’s goodness and charity; 
how she was constantly visiting the poor now; how she was for 
ever engaged in good works for the young, the sick, and the aged. 
She had had a dreadful misfortune in love ; she was going to be 
married to a young marquis ; richer even than Prince de Montcon- 
tour down at Rosebury ; but it was all broke off on account of that 
dreadful affair at the Hall. 

“Was she very good to the poor? did she come often to see 


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687 


her grandfather’s old friend ] it was no more than she ought to do,” 
Colonel Newcome said; without, however, thinking fit to tell his 
informant that he had himself met his niece Ethel, five minutes 
before he had entered Mrs. Mason’s door. 

The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, 
and talking (as best she might, for no doubt the news which she 
had just heard had agitated her) about blankets and arrowroot, 
wine, and medicaments for her poor, when she saw her uncle 
coming towards her. She tottered a step or two forwards to meet 
him ; held both her hands out, and called his name ; but he looked 
her sternly in the face, took off his hat and bowed, and passed on. 
He did not think fit to mention the meeting even to his son Clive ; 
but we may be sure Mr. Harris, the surgeon, spoke of the circum- 
stance that night after the lecture at the club, where a crowd of 
gentlemen were gathered together, smoking their cigars, and enjoy- 
ing themselves according to their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes 
Newcome’s performance. 

According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed 
representative was received by the committee of the Newcome 
Athenaeum, assembled in their committee-room, and thence mar- 
shalled by the chairman and vice-chairman to his rostrum in the 
lecture-hall, round about which the magnates of the institution and 
the notabilities of the town were rallied on this public occasion. 
The Baronet came in some state from his own house, arriving at 
Newcome in his carriage with four horses, accompanied by my 
Lady his mother, and Miss Ethel his beautiful sister, who was 
now T mistress at the Hall. His little girl was brought- — five years 
old now; she sat on her aunt’s knee, and slept during a greater 
part of the performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made 
on the introduction of these personages to their reserved seats on 
the platform, where they sat encompassed by others of the great 
ladies of Newcome, to whom they and the lecturer were especially 
gracious at this season. Was not Parliament about to be dissolved, 
and were not the folks at Newcome Park particularly civil at that 
interesting period] So Barnes Newcome mounts his pulpit, bows 
round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment of their buzz 
of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white pocket-handkerchief 
across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture about Mrs. 
Hemans and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a com- 
mercial man as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and 
his joy in his affections : the presence of this immense assembly 
here this evening ; of the industrious capitalists ; of the intelligent 
middle class ; of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives 
of Newcome ; these surrounded by their wives and their children 


688 


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(a graceful bow to the bonnets to the right of the platform), show 
that they, too, have hearts to feel, and homes to cherish ; that 
they, too, feel the love of women, the innocence of children, the 
love of song ! Our lecturer then makes a distinction between man’s 
poetry and woman’s poetry, charging considerably in favour of the 
latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is after all the 
true office of the bard ; to decorate the homely threshold, to wreathe 
flowers round the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the 
Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans’s biography, and 
state where she was born, and under what circumstances she must 
have first, &c. &c. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes New- 
come’s lecture ? I was not present, and did not read the report. 
Very likely the above may be a reminiscence of that mock lecture 
which Warrington delivered in anticipation of the Baronet’s oration. 

After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the 
Baronet suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his 
manuscript ; betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before 
he resumed his discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, 
and disturbed in tone. This period of disturbance, no doubt, must 
have occurred when Sir Barnes saw before him F. Bayham and War- 
rington seated in the amphitheatre ; and, by the side of those fierce 
scornful countenances, Clive Newcome’s pale face. 

Clive Newcome was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were 
fixed upon the lady seated not far from the lecturer — upon Ethel, 
with her arm round her little niece’s shoulder, and her thick black 
ringlets drooping down over a face paler than Clive’s own. 

Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of 
him as she entered the hall ; saw him at the very first moment ; 
saw nothing but him, I dare say, though her eyes were shut and 
her head was turned now towards her mother, and now bent down 
on her little niece’s golden curls. And the past and its dear histories, 
and youth and its hopes and passions, and tones and looks for ever 
echoing in the heart, and present in the memory — these, no doubt, 
poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great gulf of time, 
and parting and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved for many 
years. There she sits : the same, but changed ; as gone from him 
as if she were dead; departed indeed into another sphere, and 
entered into a kind of death. If there is no love more in yonder 
heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of 
youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it 
with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, 
and kiss her cold lips and press her hand ! It falls back dead on 
the cold breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a 
smile. Cover them and lay them in the ground, and so take thy 



“sir barnks newcome on the affections, 





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689 

hatband off, good friend, and go to thy business. Do you suppose 
you are the only man who has had to attend such a funeral ? You 
will find some men smiling and at work the day after. Some come 
to the grave now and again out of the world, and say a brief prayer, 
and a “ God bless her ! ” With some men, she gone, and her viduous 
mansion your heart to let, her successor the new occupant poking 
in all the drawers, and corners, and cupboards of the tenement, 
finds her miniature and some of her dusty old letters hidden away 
somewhere, and says — Was this the face he admired so ? Why, 
allowing even for the painter’s flattery, it is quite ordinary, and the 
eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the letters you 
thought so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read anything 
more commonplace in my life. See, here’s a line half blotted out. 
Oh, I suppose she was crying then — some of her tears, idle tears. . . . 
Hark, there is Barnes Newcome’s eloquence still plapping on like 
water from a cistern — and our thoughts, where have they wandered ? 
far away from the lecture — as far away as Clive’s almost. And 
now the fountain ceases to trickle ; the mouth from which issued 
that cool and limpid flux ceases to smile ; the figure is seen to bow 
and retire ; a buzz, a hum, a whisper, a scuffle, a meeting of bonnets 
and wagging of feathers and rustling of silks ensue. “ Thank you ! 
delightful, I am sure ! ” “I really was quite overcome.” “ Excel- 
lent.” “ So much obliged,” are rapid phrases heard amongst the 
polite on the platform. While down below, “ Yaw ! quite enough 
of that.” “ Mary Jane, cover your throat up, and don’t kitch cold, 
and don’t push me, please, sir.” “ ’Arry ! coom along and ’av a 
pint a’ ale,” &c., are the remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by 
Clive Newcome as he watches at the private entrance of the Athe- 
naeum, where Sir Barnes’s carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps, 
and domestics in state liveries. One of them comes out of the 
building bearing the little girl in his arms and lays her in the carriage. 
Then Sir Barnes, and Lady Ann, and the Mayor. Then Ethel issues 
forth, and as she passes under the lamps, beholds Clive’s face as 
pale and sad as her own. 

Shall we go visit the lodge-gates of Newcome Park with the 
moon shining on their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking 
by miles of grey paling and endless palisades of firs ? 0 you fool, 

what do you hope to see behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, 
whither would you run ? Can you burst the tether of fate ? and is 
not poor dear little Rosey Mackenzie sitting yonder waiting for you 
by the stake ? Go home, sir ; and don’t catch cold. So Mr. Clive 
returns to the “ King’s Arms,” and up to his bedroom, and he hears 
Mr. F. Bayham’s deep voice as he passes by the Boscawen room, 
where the Jolly Britons are as usual assembled. 

8 2 X 


CHAPTER LXVII 


NEWCOME AND LIBERTY 

W E have said that the Baronet’s lecture was discussed in 
the midnight senate assembled at the “King’s Arms,” 
where Mr. Tom Potts showed the orator no mercy. The 
senate of the “King’s Arms” was hostile to Sir Barnes Newcome. 
Many other Newcomites besides were savage and inclined to revolt 
against the representative of their borough. As these patriots met 
over their cups, and over the bumper of friendship uttered the 
sentiments of freedom, they had often asked of one another, where 
should a man be found to rid Newcome of its dictator 1 ? Generous 
hearts writhed under the oppression : patriotic eyes scowled when 
Barnes Newcome went by : with fine satire, Tom Potts at Brown 
the hatter’s shop, who made the hats for Sir Barnes Newcome’s 
domestics, proposed to take one of the beavers — a gold-laced one 
with a cockade and a cord — and set it up in the market-place and 
bid all Newcome come bow to it, as to the hat of Gessler. “ Don’t 
you think, Potts,” says F. Bayham, who of course was admitted 
into the “ King’s Arms ” club, and ornamented that assembly by 
his presence and discourse, “don’t you think the Colonel would 
make a good William Tell to combat against that Gessler ? ” Ha ! 
Proposal received with acclamation — eagerly adopted by Charles 
Tucker, Esquire, attorney-at-law, who would not have the slightest 
objection to conduct Colonel Newcome’s, or any other gentleman’s, 
electioneering business in Newcome or elsewhere. 

Like those three gentlemen in the plays and pictures of William 
Tell, who conspire under the moon, calling upon liberty and re- 
solving to elect Tell as their especial champion — like Arnold, 
Melchthal, and Werner — Tom Potts, Fred Bayham, and Charles 
Tucker, Esquires, conspired round a punch-bowl, and determined 
that Thomas Newcome should be requested to free his country. 
A deputation from the electors of Newcome, that is to say, these 
very gentlemen, waited on the Colonel in his apartment the very 
next morning, and set before him the state of the borough ; Barnes 
Newcome’s tyranny under which it groaned; and the yearning of 
all honest men to be free from that usurpation. Thomas Newcome 


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691 

received the deputation with great solemnity and politeness, crossed 
his legs, folded his arms, smoked his cheroot, and listened most 
decorously, as now Potts, now Tucker expounded to him ; Bayham 
giving the benefit of his emphatic “ Hear hear ” to their statements, 
and explaining dubious phrases to the Colonel in the most affable 
manner. 

Whatever the conspirators had to say against poor Barnes, 
Colonel Newcome was only too ready to believe. He had made 
up his mind that that criminal ought to be punished and exposed. 
The lawyer’s covert innuendoes, who was ready to insinuate any 
amount of evil against Barnes which could safely be uttered, were 
by no means strong enough for Thomas Newcome. “ * Sharp 
practice ! exceedingly alive to his own interests — reported violence 
of temper and tenacity of money’ — say swindling at once, sir, — 
say falsehood and rapacity — say cruelty and avarice,” cries the 
Colonel — “I believe, upon my honour and conscience, that unfor- 
tunate young man to be guilty of every one of those crimes.” 

Mr. Bayham remarks to Mr. Potts that our friend the Colonel, 
when he does utter an opinion, takes care there shall be no mistake 
about it. 

“ And I took care there should be no mistake before I uttered 
it at all, Bayham!” cries F. B.’s patron. “As long as I was in 
any doubt about this young man, I gave the criminal the benefit 
of it, as a man who admires our glorious constitution should do, 
and kept my own counsel, sir.” 

“At least,” remarks Mr. Tucker, “enough is proven to show 
that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet, is scarce a fit person 
to represent this great borough in Parliament.” 

“ Represent Newcome in Parliament ! It is a disgrace to that 
noble institution the English House of Commons, that Barnes 
Newcome should sit in it. A man whose word you cannot trust ; 
a man stained witli every private crime. What right has he to 
sit in the assembly of the legislators of the land, sir?” cries the 
Colonel, waving his hand as if addressing a chamber of deputies. 

“You are for upholding the House of Commons?” inquires 
the lawyer. 

“ Of course, sir, of course.” 

“And for increasing the franchise, Colonel Newcome, I should 
hope ? ” continues Mr. Tucker. 

“Every man who can read and write ought to have a vote, 
sir ; that is my opinion ! ” cries the Colonel. 

“ He’s a Liberal to the backbone,” says Potts to Tucker. 

“ To the backbone ! ” responds Tucker to Potts. “ The Colonel 
will do for us, Potts.” 


692 


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“We want such a man, Tucker; the Independent has been 
crying out for such a man for years past. We ought to have a 
Liberal as second representative of this great town — not a sneaking 
half-and-half Ministerialist like Sir Barnes, a fellow with one leg 
in the Carlton and the other in Brooks’s. Old Mr. Bunce we 
can’t touch. His place is safe ; he is a good man of business : 
we can’t meddle with Mr. Bunce — I know that, who know the 
feeling of the country pretty well.” 

“ Pretty well ! Better than any man in Newcome, Potts ! ” 
cries Mr. Tucker. 

“ But a good man like the Colonel, — a good Liberal like the 
Colonel, — a man who goes in for household suffrage ” 

“ Certainly, gentlemen.” 

“ And the general great Liberal principles — we know, of course 
— such a man would assuredly have a chance against Sir Barnes 
Newcome at the coming election, could we find such a man — a real 
friend of the people ! ” 

“ I know a friend of the people if ever there was one,” F. Bay- 
ham interposes. 

“ A man of wealth, station, experience ; a man who has fought 
for his country ; a man who is beloved in this place as you are, 
Colonel Newcome : for your goodness is known, sir. — You are not 
ashamed of your origin, and there is not a Newcomite old or young 
but knows how admirably good you have been to your old friend, 
Mrs. — Mrs. What-d’you-call-’em ? ” 

“Mrs. Mason,” from F. B. 

“ Mrs. Mason. If such a man as you, sir, would consent to 
put himself in nomination at the next election, every true Liberal 
in this place would rusli to support you ; and crush the oligarch 
who rides over the liberties of this borough ! ” 

“ Something of this sort, gentlemen, I own to you had crossed 
my mind,” Thomas Newcome remarked. “ When I saw that dis- 
grace to my name, and the name of my father’s birthplace, repre- 
senting the borough in Parliament, I thought for the credit of the 
town and the family, the Member for Newcome at least might be 
an honest man. I am an old soldier ; have passed all my life in 
India ; and am little conversant with affairs at home ” (cries of < 
“You are, you are!”). “I hoped that my son, Mr. Clive New- 
come, might have been found qualified to contest this borough 
against his unworthy cousin, and possibly to sit as your repre- 
sentative in Parliament. The wealth I have had the good fortune 
to amass will descend to him naturally, and at no very distant 
period of time, for I am nearly seventy years of age, gentlemen.” 

The gentlemen are astonished at this statement. 


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693 

“ But,” resumed the Colonel, “ my son Clive, as friend Bay ham 
knows, and to my own regret and mortification, as I don’t care to 
confess to you, declares he has no interest in politics, nor desire 
for public distinction — prefers his own pursuits — and even these I 
fear do not absorb him — declines the offer which I made him, to 
present himself in opposition to Sir Barnes Newcome. It becomes 
men in a certain station, as I think, to assert that station ; and 
though a few years back I never should have thought of public 
life at all, and proposed to end my days in quiet as a retired dragoon 
officer, since — since it has pleased Heaven to increase very greatly 
my pecuniary means, to place me as a director and manager of an 
important banking company, in a station of great public responsi- 
bility, I and my brother directors have thought it but right that 
one of us should sit in Parliament, if possible, and I am not a man 
to shirk from that or from any other duty.” 

“ Colonel, will you attend a meeting of electors which we will 
call, and say as much to them and as well ? ” cries Mr, Potts. 
“ Shall I put an announcement in my paper to the effect that you 
are ready to come forward ? ” 

“I am prepared to do so, my good sir.” 

And presently this solemn palaver ended. 

Besides the critical article upon the Baronet’s lecture, of which 
Mr. Warrington was the author, there appeared in the leading 
columns of the ensuing number of Mr. Pott’s Independent some 
remarks of a very smashing or hostile nature against the Member 
for Newcome. “This gentleman has shown such talent in the 
lecturing business,” the Independent said, “ that it is a great pity 
he should not withdraw himself from politics, and cultivate what 
all Newcome knows are the arts which he understands best ; namely, 
poetry and the domestic affections. The performance of our talented 
representative last night was so pathetic as to bring tears into the 
eyes of several of our fair friends. We have heard, but never 
believed until now, that Sir Barnes Newcome possessed such a 
genius foi ' making women cry. Last week we had the talented 
Miss Noakes from Slowcome, reading Milton to us ; how far superior 
was the eloquence of Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., even 
to that of the celebrated actress ! Bets were freely offered in the 
room last night that Sir Barnes would beat any woman , — bets 
which were not taken, as we scarcely need say, so well do our 
citizens appreciate the character of our excellent, our admirable 
representative. Let the Baronet stick to his lectures, and let 
Newcome relieve him of his political occupations. He is not fit 
for them, he is too sentimental a man for us ; the men of Newcome 
want a sound practical person ; the Liberals of Newcome have a 


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694 

desire to be represented. When we elected Sir Barnes, he talked 
liberally enough, and we thought he would do, but you see the 
honourable Baronet is so poetical ! we ought to have known that, 
and not to have believed him. Let us have a straightforward 
gentleman. If not a man of words, at least let us have a practical 
man. If not a man of eloquence, one at any rate whose word we 
can trust, and we can’t trust Sir Barnes Newcome’s : we have tried 
him, and we can’t really. Last night, when the ladies were crying, 
we could not for the souls of us help laughing. We hope we know 
how to conduct ourselves as gentlemen. We trust we did not 
interrupt the harmony of the evening; but Sir Barnes Newcome 
prating about children and virtue, and affection and poetry, this 
is really too strong. 

“The Independent , faithful to its name, and ever actuated by 
principles of honour, has been, as our thousands of readers know, 
disposed to give Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., a fair trial. 
When he came forward after his father’s death, we believed in his 
pledges and promises, as a retrencher and reformer, and we stuck 
by him. Is there any man in Newcome, except, perhaps, our 
twaddling old contemporary the Sentinel , who believes in Sir B. N. 
any morel We say no, and we now give the readers of the Inde- 
pendent, and the electors of this borough, fair notice, that when the 
dissolution of Parliament takes place, a good man, a true man, a 
man of experience, 110 dangerous radical, or brawling tap orator— 
Mr. Hicks’s friends well understand whom we mean — but a gentle- 
man of Liberal principles, well-won wealth, and deserved station and 
honour, will ask the electors of Newcome whether they are or 
are not discontented with their present unworthy Member. The 
Independent , for one, says, we know good men of your family, we 
know in it men who would do honour to any name ; but you, Sir 
Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., we trust no more.” 

In the electioneering matter, which had occasioned my unlucky 
interference, and that subsequent little coolness upon the good 
Colonel’s part, Clive Newcome had himself shown that the scheme 
was not to his liking ; had then submitted as his custom was : and 
doing so with a bad grace, as also was to be expected, had got little 
thanks for his obedience. Thomas Newcome was hurt at his son’s 
faint-heartedness, and of course little Rosey was displeased at his 
hanging back. He set off in his father’s train, a silent, unwilling 
partisan. Thomas Newcome had the leisure to survey Clive’s glum 
face opposite to him during the whole of their journey, and to chew 
his mustachios, and brood upon his wrath and wrongs. His life had 
been a sacrifice for that boy ! What darling schemes had he not 
formed in his behalf, and how superciliously did Clive meet his 


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695 

projects ! The Colonel could not see the harm of which he had 
himself been the author. Had he not done everything in mortal’s 
power for his son’s happiness, and how many young men in England 
were there with such advantages as this moody, discontented, spoiled 
boy ? As Clive backed out of the contest, of course his father urged 
it only the more vehemently. Clive slunk away from committees 
and canvassing, and lounged about the Newcome manufactories, 
whilst his father, with anger and bitterness in his heart, remained 
at the post of honour, as he called it, bent upon overcoming his 
enemy and carrying his point against Barnes Newcome. “ If Paris 
will not fight, sir,” the Colonel said, with a sad look following his 
son, “ Priam must. 7 ’ Good old Priam believed his cause to be a 
perfectly just one, and that duty and his honour called upon him to 
draw the sword. So there was difference between Thomas Newcome 
and Clive hi3 son. I protest it is with pain and reluctance I have 
to write, that the good old man was in error — that there was a 
wrong-doer, and that Atticus was he. 

Atticus, be it remembered, thought himself compelled by the 
very best motives. Thomas Newcome, the Indian banker, was at 
war with Barnes, the English banker. The latter had commenced 
the hostilities, by a sudden and cowardly act of treason. There were 
private wrongs to envenom the contest, but it was the mercantile 
quarrel on which the Colonel chose to set his declaration of war. 
Barnes’s first dastardly blow had occasioned it, and his uncle was 
determined to carry it through. This I have said was also George 
Warrington’s judgment, who in the ensuing struggle between Sir 
Barnes and his uncle, acted as a very warm and efficient partisan of 
the latter. “ Kinsmanship ! ” says George. “ What has old Tom 
Newcome ever had from his kinsman but cowardice and treachery? 
If Barnes had held up his finger the young one might have been 
happy ; if he could have effected it, the Colonel and his bank wmuld 
have been ruined. I am for war, and for seeing the old boy in 
Parliament. He knows no more about politics than I do about 
dancing the polka ; but there are five hundred wiseacres in that 
assembly who know no more than he does, and an honest man tak- 
ing his seat there, in place of a confounded little rogue, at least 
makes a change for the better.” 

I dare say Thomas Newcome, Esquire, would by no means have 
concurred in the above estimate of his political knowledge, and 
thought himself as well informed as another. He used to speak 
with the greatest gravity about our constitution as the pride and 
envy of the world, though he surprised you as much by the latitu- 
dinarian reforms which he was eager to press forward, as by the 
most singular old Tory opinions which he advocated on other 


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occasions. He was for having every man to vote ; every poor man 
to labour short time and get high wages ; every poor curate to be 
paid double or treble ; every bishop to be docked of his salary, and 
dismissed from the House of Lords. But he was a staunch admirer 
of that assembly, and a supporter of the rights of the Crown. He 
was for sweeping off taxes from the poor, and as money must be 
raised to carry on government, he opined that the rich should pay. 
He uttered all these opinions with the greatest gravity and emphasis, 
before a large assembly of electors and others convened in the New- 
come Town Hall, amid the roars of applause of the non-electors, 
and the bewilderment and consternation of Mr. Potts, of the In- 
dependent, who had represented the Colonel in his paper as a safe 
and steady reformer. Of course the Sentinel showed him up as a 
most dangerous radical, a sepoy republican, and so forth, to the 
wrath and indignation of Colonel Newcome. He a republican ! 
He scorned the name ! He would die as he had bled many a time 
for his Sovereign. He an enemy of our beloved Church ! He 
esteemed and honoured it, as he hated and abhorred the supersti- 
tions of Rome. (Yells from the Irish in the crowd.) He an enemy 
of the House of Lords ! He held it to be the safeguard of the 
constitution and the legitimate prize of our most illustrious naval, 
military, and — and — legal heroes (ironical cheers). He repelled 
with scorn the dastard attacks of the journal which had assailed 
him ; he asked, laying his hand on his heart, if as a gentleman, an 
officer bearing her Majesty’s commission, he could be guilty of a 
desire to subvert her empire and to insult the dignity of her crown ? 

After this second speech at the Town Hall, it was asserted by 
a considerable party in Newcome, that Old Tom (as the mob famil- 
iarity called him) was a Tory, while an equal number averred that 
he was a Radical. Mr. Potts tried to reconcile his statements, a 
work in which I should think the talented editor of the Independent 
had no little difficulty. “ He knows nothing about it,” poor Clive 
said with a sigh ; “ his politics are all sentiment and kindness, he 
will have the poor man paid double wages, and does not remember 
that the employer would be ruined. You have heard him, Pen, 
talking in this way at his own table ; but when he comes out armed 
cap-a-pie , and careers against windmills in public, don’t you see 
that as Don Quixote’s son I had rather the dear brave old gentle- 
man was at home % ” 

So this faineant took but little part in the electioneering doings, 
holding moodily aloof from the meetings, and councils, and public- 
houses, where his father’s partisans were assembled. 


CHAPTER LXVIII 

A LETTER AND A RECONCILIATION 

Miss Ethel Newcome to Mrs. Pendennis 
EAREST LAURA, — I have not written to you for many 



weeks past. There have been some things too trivial, and 


^ some too sad, to write about ; some things I know I shall 
write of if I begin, and yet that I know I had best leave ; for of 
what good is looking to the past now ? Why vex you or myself 
by reverting to it? Does not every day bring its own duty and 
task, and are these not enough to occupy one ? What a fright you 
must have had with my little god-daughter ! Thank Heaven she is 
well now and restored to you. You and your husband I know 
do not think it essential ; but I do, most essential , and am very 
grateful that she was taken to church before her illness. 

“Is Mr. Pendennis proceeding with his canvass? I try and 
avoid a certain subject, but it will come. You know who is 
canvassing against us here. My poor uncle has met with very 
considerable success amongst the lower classes. He makes them 
rambling speeches at which my brother and his friends laugh, but 
which the people applaud. I saw him only yesterday, on the 
balcony of the ‘ King’s Arms,’ speaking to a great mob, who were 
cheering vociferously below. I had met him before. He would 
not even stop and give his Ethel of old days his hand. I would 
have given him I don’t know what, for one kiss, for one kind word : 
but he passed on and would not answer me. He thinks me — what 
the world thinks me, worldly and heartless ; what I was. But at 
least, dear Laura, you know that I always truly loved him, and do 
now, although he is our enemy, though he believes and utters the 
most cruel things against Barnes, though he says that Barnes 
Newcome, my father’s son, my brother, Laura, is not an honest 
man. Hard, selfish, worldly, I own my poor brother to be, E, and 
pray Heaven to amend him ; but dishonest ! and to be so maligned 
by the person one loves best in the world ! This is a hard trial. I 
pray a proud heart may be bettered by it. 

“ And I have seen my cousin : once at a lecture which poor 


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Barnes gave, and who seemed very much disturbed on perceiving 
Clive : once afterwards at good old Mrs Mason's, whom I have 
always continued to visit for uncle’s sake. The poor old woman, 
whose wits are very nearly gone, held both our hands, and asked 
when we were going to be married , and laughed, poor old thing ! 
I cried out to her that Mr. Clive had a wife at home, a dear young 
wife, I said. He gave a dreadful sort of laugh, and turned away 
into the window. He looks terribly ill, pale, and oldened. 

“ I asked him a great deal about his wife, whom I remember a 
very pretty, sweet-looking girl indeed, at my Aunt Hobson’s, but 
with a not agreeable mother, as I thought then. He answered me 
by monosyllables, appeared as though he would speak, and then 
became silent. I am pained, and yet glad that I saw him. I said, 
not very distinctly, I dare say, that l hoped the difference between 
Barnes and uncle would not extinguish his regard for mamma and 
me, who have always loved him ; when I said loved him, he gave 
one of his bitter laughs again ; and so he did when I said I hoped 
his wife was well. You never would tell me much about Mrs. 
Newcome ; and I fear she does not make my cousin happy. And 
yet this marriage was of my uncle’s making * another of the un- 
fortunate marriages in our family I am glad that 1 paused in 
time, before the commission of that sin , I strive my best to amend 
my temper, my inexperience, my shortcomings, and try to be the 
mother of my poor brother’s children. But Barnes has never for- 
given me my refusal of Lord Farintosh. He is of the world still, 
Laura. Nor must we deal too harshly with people of his nature, 
who cannot perhaps comprehend a world beyond. I remember in 
old days, when we were travelling on the Rhine, in the happiest 
days of my whole life, I used to hear Clive, and his friend Mr. 
Ridley, talk of art and of nature in a way that I could not under- 
stand at first, but came to comprehend better as my cousin taught 
me ; and since then, I see pictures, and landscapes, and flowers, 
with quite different eyes, and beautiful secrets as it were, of which 
I had no idea before. The secret of all secrets, the secret of the 
other life, and the better world beyond ours, may not this be un- 
revealed to some? I pray for them all, dearest Laura, for those 
nearest and dearest to me, that the truth may lighten their dark- 
ness, and Heaven’s great mercy defend them in the perils and 
dangers of their night. 

“ My boy at Sandhurst has done very well indeed ; and Egbert, 
am happy to say, thinks of taking orders : he has been very mode- 
rate at College. Not so Alfred ; but the Guards are a sadly 
dangerous school for a young man : I have promised to pay his 
debts, and he is to exchange into the line. Mamma is coming to 


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699 

us at Christmas with Alice : my sister is very pretty indeed, I 
think, and I am rejoiced she is to marry young Mr. Mumford, who 
has a tolerable living, and who has been attached to her ever since 
he was a boy at Rugby School. 

“ Little Barnes comes on bravely with his Latin ; and Mr. 
Whitestock, a most excellent and valuable person in this place, 
where there is so much Romanism and Dissent, speaks highly of 
him. Little Clara is so like her unhappy mother in a thousand 
ways and actions, that I am often shocked ; and see my brother 
starting back and turning his head away, as if suddenly wounded. 
I have heard the most deplorable accounts of Lord and Lady High- 
gate. G dearest friend and sister !— save you, I think I scarce 
know any one that is happy in the world : I trust you may continue 
so — you who impart your goodness and kindness to all who come 
near you — you in whose sweet serene happiness I am thankful to 
be allowed to repose sometimes. You are the island in the desert, 
Laura ! and the birds sing there, and the fountain flows ; and we 
come and repose by you for a little while, and to-morrow the march 
begins again, and the toil, and the struggle, and the desert. Good- 
bye, fountain ! Whisper kisses to my dearest little ones for their 
affectionate Aunt Ethel. 

“ A friend of his, a Mr. Warrington, has spoken against us 
several times with extraordinary ability, as Barnes owns. Do you 
know Mr. W. ] He wrote a dreadful article in the Independent 
about the last poor lecture, which was indeed sad sentimental 
commonplace : and the critique is terribly comical. I could not 
help laughing, remembering some passages in it, when Barnes 
mentioned it : and my brother became so angry ! They have put 
up a dreadful caricature of B. in Newcome : and my brother says 
he did it, but I hope not. It is very droll, though : he used to 
make them very funnily. I am glad he has spirits for it. Good- 
bye, again. — E. N.” 

“ He says he did it ! ” cries Mr. Pendennis, laying the letter 
down. “ Barnes Newcome would scarcely caricature himself, my 
dear ! ” 

“ ‘ He ’ often means — means Clive— I think,” says Mrs. Pen- 
dennis, in an off-hand manner. 

“ Oh ! he means Clive, does he, Laura 1 ” 

“ Yes — and you mean goose, Mr. Pendennis ! ” that saucy 
lady replies. 

It must have been about the very time that this letter was 
written, that a critical conversation occurred between Clive and 


700 


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his father, of which the lad did not inform me until much later 
days ; as was the case — the reader has been more than once begged 
to believe — with many other portions of this biography. 

One night the Colonel, having come home from a round of 
electioneering visits, not half satisfied with himself, exceedingly 
annoyed (much more than he cared to own) with the impudence 
of some rude fellows at the public-houses, who had interrupted his 
fine speeches with odious hiccups and familiar jeers, was seated 
brooding over his cheroot by his chimney fire ; friend F. B (of 
whose companionship his patron was occasionally tired) finding 
much better amusement with the “ Jolly Britons ” in the Boscawen 
Room below. The Colonel, as an electioneering business, had made 
his appearance in the club. But that ancient Roman warrior had 
frightened those simple Britons. His manners were too awful for 
them ; so were Clive's, who visited them also under Mr. Potts’s 
introduction ; but the two gentlemen — each being full of care and 
personal annoyance at the time — acted like wet blankets upon the 
Britons, whereas F. B. warmed them and cheered them, affably 
partook of their meals with them, and graciously shared their cups. 
So the Colonel was alone, listening to the far-off roar of the Britons’ 
choruses by an expiring fire, as he sat by a glass of cold negus and 
the ashes of his cigar. 

I dare say he may have been thinking that his fire was well 
nigh out, his cup at the dregs, his pipe little more now than dust 
and ashes — when Clive, candle in hand, came into their sitting- 
room. 

As each saw the other’s face, it was so very sad and worn and 
pale, that the young man started back ; and the elder, with quite 
the tenderness of old days, cried, “ God bless me, my boy, how ill 
you look ! Come and warm yourself — look, the fire’s out. Have 
something, Clivy ! ” 

For months past they had not had a really kind word. The 
tender old voice smote upon Clive, and he burst into sudden tears. 
They rained upon his father’s trembling old brown hand as he 
stooped down and kissed it. 

“You look very ill too, father,” says Clive. 

“ 111 1 not I ! ” cries the father, still keeping the boy’s hand 
under both his own on the mantelpiece. “ Such a battered old 
fellow as I am has a right to look the worse for wear; but you, 
boy, why do you look so pale 1 ” 

“I have seen a ghost, father,” Clive answered. Thomas, 
however, looked alarmed and inquisitive, as though the boy was 
wandering in his mind. 

“ The ghost of my youth, father, the ghost of my happiness, 


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701 


and the best days of my life,” groaned out the young man. “I 
saw Ethel to-day. I went to see Sarah Mason, and she was 
there.” 

“ I had seen her, but I did not speak of her,” said the father. 
“ I thought it was best not to mention her to you, my poor boy. 
And are — are you fond of her still, Clive ? ” 

“Still! once means always in these things, father, doesn’t 
it ? Once means to-day, and yesterday, and for ever and ever.” 

“ Nay, my boy, you mustn’t talk to me so, or even to yourself 
so. You have the dearest little wife at home; a dear little wife 
and child.” 

“You had a son, and have been kind enough to him, Cod 
knows. You had a wife : but that doesn’t prevent other — other 
thoughts. Do you know you never spoke twice in your life about 
my mother 1 ? You didn’t care for her.” 

“ I — I did my duty by her : I denied her nothing. I scarcely 
ever had a word with her, and I did my best to make her happy,” 
interposed the Colonel. 

“I know, but your heart was with the other. So is mine. 
It’s fatal ; it runs in the family, father.” 

The boy looked so ineffably wretched that the father’s heart 
melted still more. “I did my best, Clive,” the Colonel gasped 
out. “I went to that villain Barnes and offered him to settle 
every shilling I was worth on you — I did — you didn’t know that 
— I’d kill myself for your sake, Clivy. What’s an old fellow worth 
living for? I can live upon a crust and a cigar. I don’t care 
about a carriage, and only go in it to please Rosey. I wanted to 
give up all for you, but he played me false, that scoundrel cheated 
us both ; he did, and so did Ethel.” 

“ No, sir ; I may have thought so in my rage once, but I know 
better now. She was the victim and not the agent. Did Madame 
de Florae play you false when she married her husband. It was 
her fate, and she underwent it. We all bow to it, we are in the 
track and the car passes over us. You know it does, father.” The 
Colonel was a fatalist ; he had often advanced this oriental creed in 
his simple discourses with his son and Clive’s friends. 

“ Besides,” Clive went on, “ Ethel does not care for me. She 
received me to-day quite coldly, and held her hand out as if we had 
only parted last year. I suppose she likes that Marquis who jilted 
her — God bless her. How shall we know what wins the hearts of 
women ? She has mine. There was my Fate. Praise be to Allah ! 
It is over.” 

“ But there’s that villain who injured you. His isn’t over yet,” 
cried the Colonel, clenching his trembling hand. 


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“ Ah, father ! . Let us leave him to Allah too ! Suppose 
Madame de Florae had a brother who insulted you. You know 
you wouldn’t have revenged yourself. You would have wounded 
her in striking him.” 

“ You called out Barnes yourself, boy,” cried the father. 

“ That was for another cause, and not for my quarrel. And 
how do you know I intended to fire h By Jove, I was so miserable 
then that an ounce of lead would have done me little harm ! ” 

The father saw the son’s mind more clearly than he had ever 
done hitherto. They had scarcely ever talked upon that subject, 
which the Colonel found was so deeply fixed in Clive’s heart. He 
thought of his own early days, and how he had suffered, and beheld 
his son before him racked with the same cruel pangs of enduring 
grief. And he began to own that he had pressed him too hastily 
in his marriage ; and to make an allowance for an unhappiness of 
which he had in part been the cause. 

“ Mashallah ! Clive, my boy,” said the old man, “ what is done 
is done.” 

“Let us break up our camp before this place, and not go to 
war with Barnes, father,” said Clive. “Let us have peace — and 
forgive him if we can.” 

“ And retreat before this scoundrel, Clive ? ” 

“ What is a victory over such a fellow 1 One gives a chimney- 
sweep the wall, father.” 

“ I say again — What is done is done. I have promised to 
meet him at the hustings, and I will. I think it is best : and you 
are right : and you act like a high-minded gentleman — and my dear 
dear old boy — not to meddle in the quarrel — though I didn’t think 
so — and the difference gave me a great deal of pain — and so did 
what Pendennis said — and I’m wrong— and thank God I am 
wrong — and God bless you, my own boy ! ” the Colonel cried out 
in a burst of emotion. And the two went to their bedrooms 
together, and were happier as they shook hands at the doors of 
their adjoining chambers than they had been for many a long day 
and year. 


CHAPTER LXIX 


THE ELECTION 


AVING thus given his challenge, reconnoitred the enemy. 



and pledged himself to do battle at the ensuing election, 


L 1 our Colonel took leave of the town of Newcome, and 
returned to his banking affairs in London. His departure was as 
that of a great public personage ; the gentlemen of the Committee 
followed him obsequiously down to the train. “ Quick,” bawls out 
Mr. Potts to Mr. Brown, the station-master, “ quick, Mr. Brown, 
a carriage for Colonel Newcome ! ” Half-a-dozen hats are taken 
off as he enters into the carriage, F. Bayham and his servant 
after him, with portfolios, umbrellas, shawls, despatch-boxes. 
Clive was not there to act as his father’s aide-de-camp. After 
their conversation together the young man had returned to Mrs. 
Clive and his other duties in life. 

It has been said that Mr. Pendennis was in the country, engaged 
in a pursuit exactly similar to that which occupied Colonel New- 
come. The menaced dissolution of Parliament did not take place 
so soon as we expected. The Ministry still hung together, and by 
consequence, Sir Barnes Newcome kept his seat in the House of 
Commons, from which his elder kinsman was eager to oust him. 
Away from London, and having but few correspondents, save on 
affairs of business, I heard little of Clive and the Colonel, save an 
occasional puff of one of Colonel Newcome’s entertainments in the 
Pall Mall Gazette , to which journal F. Bayham still condescended 
to contribute ; and a satisfactory announcement in a certain part 
of that paper, that on such a day, in Hyde Park Gardens, Mrs. 
Clive Newcome had presented her husband with a son. Clive 
wrote to me presently to inform me of the circumstance, stating 
at the same time, with but moderate gratification on his own part, 
that the Campaigner, Mrs. Newcome’s mamma, had upon this 
second occasion made a second lodgment in her daughter’s house 
and bedchamber, and showed herself affably disposed to forget 
the little unpleasantries which had clouded over the sunshine of 
her former visit. 

Laura, with a smile of some humour, said she thought now 


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would be the time when, if Clive could be spared from his bank, 
he might pay us that visit at Fairoaks which had been due so long, 
and hinted that change of air and a temporary absence from Mrs. 
Mackenzie might be agreeable to my old friend. 

It was, on the contrary, Mr. Pendennis’s opinion that his wife 
artfully chose that period of time when little Rosey was, perforce, 
kept at home and occupied with her delightful maternal duties, 
to invite Clive to see us. Mrs. Laura frankly owned that she 
liked our Clive better without his wife than with her, and never 
ceased to regret that pretty Rosey had not bestowed her little 
hand upon Captain Hoby, as she had been very well disposed at 
one time to do. Against all marriages of interest this sentimental 
Laura never failed to utter indignant protests; and Clive’s had 
been a marriage of interest, a marriage made up by the old people, 
a marriage to which the young man had only yielded out of good- 
nature and obedience. She would apostrophise her unconscious 
young ones, and inform those innocent babies that they should 
never be made to marry except for love, never — an announcement 
which was received with perfect indifference by little Arthur on 
his rocking-horse, and little Helen smiling and crowing in her 
mother’s lap. 

So Clive came down to us careworn in appearance, but very 
pleased and happy, he said, to stay for a while with the friends 
of his youth. We showed him our modest rural lions ; we got 
him such sport and company as our quiet neighbourhood afforded, 
we gave him fishing in the Brawl, and Laura in her pony-chaise 
drove him to Baymouth, and to Clavering Park and town, and 
to visit the famous cathedral at Chatteris, where she was pleased 
to recount certain incidents of her husband’s youth. 

Clive laughed at my wife’s stories ; he pleased himself in our 
home ; he played with our children, with whom he became a great 
favourite ; he was happier, he told me with a sigh, than he had 
been for many a day. His gentle hostess echoed the sigh of the 
poor young fellow. She was sure that his pleasure was only 
transitory, and was convinced that many deep cares weighed upon 
his mind. 

Ere long my old schoolfellow made me sundry confessions, 
which showed that Laura’s surmises were correct. About his 
domestic affairs he did not treat much ; the little boy was said 
to be a very fine little boy ; the ladies had taken entire possession 
of him. “ I can’t stand Mrs. Mackenzie any longer, I own,” says 
Clive; “but how resist a wife at such a moment 1 ? Rosa was 
sure she would die unless her mother came to her, and of course 
we invited Mrs. Mack. This time she is all smiles and polite- 


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705 


ness with the Colonel : the last quarrel is laid upon me, and in 
so far I am easy, as the old folks get on pretty well together.” 
To me, considering these things, it was clear that Mr. Clive 
Newcome was but a very secondary personage indeed in his 
father’s new fine house which he inhabited, and in which the poor 
Colonel had hoped they were to live such a happy family. 

But it was about Clive Newcome’s pecuniary affairs that I 
felt .the most disquiet when he came to explain these to me. The 
Colonel’s capital and that considerable sum which Mrs. Clive 
had inherited from her good old uncle, were all involved in a 
common stock, of which Colonel Newcome took the management. 
“ The governor understands business so well, you see,” says Clive ; 
“ is a most remarkable head for accounts ; he must have inherited 
that from my grandfather, you know, who made his own fortune : 
all the Newcomes are good at accounts except me, a poor useless 
devil who knows nothing but to paint a picture, and who can’t 
even do that.” He cuts off the head of a thistle as he speaks, 
bites his tawny mustachios, plunges his hands into his pockets 
and his soul into reverie. 

“You don’t mean to say,” asks Mr. Pendennis, “that your 
wife’s fortune has not been settled upon herself 

“ Of course it has been settled upon herself ; that is, it is 
entirely her own — you know the Colonel has managed all the busi- 
ness, he understands it better than we do.” 

“ Do you say that your wife’s money is not vested in the hands 
of trustees, and for her benefit 1 ” 

“My father is one of the trustees. I tell you he manages the 
whole thing. What is his property is mine and ever has been : and 
I might draw upon him as much as I liked : and you know it’s five 
times as great as my wife’s. What is his is ours, and what is ours 
is his, of course : for instance, the India Stock, which poor Uncle 
James left, that now stands in the Colonel’s name. He wants to 
be a Director : he will be at the next election — he must have a 
certain quantity of India Stock, don’t you see ? ” 

“ My dear fellow, is there then no settlement made upon your 
wife at all 1 ” 

“ You needn’t look so frightened,” says Clive. “ I made a 
settlement on her : with all my worldly goods I did her endow — 
three thousand three hundred and thirty-three pounds six and eight- 
pence, which my father sent over from India to my uncle, years 
ago, when I came home.” 

I might well indeed be aghast at this news, and had yet further 
intelligence from Clive, which by no means contributed to lessen 
my anxiety. This worthy old Colonel, who fancied himself to be 
8 2 Y 


706 


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so clever a man of business, chose to conduct it in utter ignorance 
and defiance of law. If anything happened to the Bundelcund 
Bank, it was clear that not only every shilling of his own property, 
but every farthing bequeathed to Rosey Mackenzie would be lost ; 
only his retiring pension, which was luckily considerable, and the 
hundred pounds a year which Clive had settled on his wife, would 
be saved out of the ruin. 

And now Clive confided to me his own serious doubts and mis- 
givings regarding the prosperity of the Bank itself. He did not 
know why, but he could not help fancying that things were going 
wrong. Those partners who had come home, having sold out of 
the Bank, and were living in England so splendidly, why had they 
quitted it ? The Colonel said it was a proof of the prosperity of 
the company, that so many gentlemen were enriched who had taken 
shares in it. “ But when I asked my father,” Clive continued, 
“ why he did not himself withdraw, the dear old boy’s countenance 
fell : he told me such things were not to be done every day ; and 
ended, as usual, by saying that I do not understand anything about 
business. No more I do : that is the truth. I hate the whole 
concern, Pen ! I hate that great tawdry house in which we live ; 
and those fearfully stupid parties ! Oh, how I wish we were back 
in Fitzroy Square ! But who can recall bygones, Arthur ; or wrong 
steps in life? We must make the best of to-day, and to-morrow 
must take care of itself. ‘ Poor little child ! ’ I could not help 
thinking, as I took it crying in my arms the other day, ‘ what has 
life in store for you, my poor weeping baby ? 5 My mother-in-law 
cried out that I should drop the baby, and that only the Colonel 
knew how to hold it. My wife called from her bed; the nurse 
dashed up and scolded me ; and they drove me out of the room 
amongst them. By Jove, Pen, I laugh when some of my friends 
congratulate me on my good fortune ! I am not quite the father of 
my own child, nor the husband of my own wife, nor even the master 
of my own easel. I am managed for, don’t you see ! boarded, 
lodged, and done for. And here is the man they call happy. 
Happy ! Oh ! ! ! why had I not your strength of mind ? and why 
did I ever leave my art, my mistress ? ” 

And herewith the poor lad fell to chopping thistles again ; and 
quitted Fairoaks shortly, leaving his friends there very much dis- 
quieted about his prospects, actual and future. 

The expected dissolution of Parliament came at length. All 
the country papers in England teemed with electioneering addresses ; 
and the country was in a flutter with parti-coloured ribands. 
Colonel Thomas Newcome, pursuant to his promise, offered himself 
to the independent electors of Newcome in the Liberal journal of 


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707 


the family town, whilst Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart,, addressed him- 
self to his old and tried friends, and called upon the friends of the 
constitution to rally round him, in the Conservative print. The 
addresses of our friend were sent to us at Fairoaks by the Colonel’s 
indefatigable aide-de-camp, Mr. Frederick Bayham. During the 
period which had elapsed since the Colonel’s last canvassing visit 
and the issuing of the writs now daily expected for the new Parlia- 
ment, many things of great importance had occurred in Thomas 
Newcome’s family — events which were kept secret from his 
biographer, who was, at this period also, pretty entirely occupied 
with his own affairs. These, however, are not the present subject 
of this history, which has Newcome for its business, and the parties 
engaged in the family quarrel there. 

There were four candidates in the field for the representation 
of that borough. That old and tried Member of Parliament, Mr. 
Bunce, was considered to be secure; and the Baronet’s seat was 
thought to be pretty safe on account of his influence in the place. 
Nevertheless, Thomas Newcome’s supporters were confident for their 
champion, and that when the parties came to the poll, the extreme 
Liberals of the borough would divide their votes between him and 
the fourth candidate, the uncompromising Radical, Mr. Barker. 

In due time the Colonel and his staff arrived at Newcome, and 
resumed the active canvass which they had commenced some months 
previously. Clive was not in his father’s suite this time, nor Mr. 
Warrington, whose engagements took him elsewhere. The lawyer, 
the editor of the Independent , and F. B. w T ere the Colonel’s chief 
men. His headquarters (which F. B. liked very well) were at the 
hotel where we last saw him, and whence issuing with his aide- 
de-camp at his heels, the Colonel went round to canvass personally, 
according to his promise, every free and independent elector of the 
borough. Barnes too was canvassing eagerly on his side, and was 
most affable and active; the two parties would often meet nose 
to nose in the same street, and their retainers exchange looks of 
defiance. With Mr. Potts of the Independent , a big man, on his 
left ; with Mr. Frederick, a still bigger man, on his right ; his own 
trusty bamboo cane in his hand, before which poor Barnes had 
shrunk abashed ere now, Colonel Newcome had commonly the best 
of these street encounters, and frowned his nephew Barnes, and 
Barnes’s staff, off the pavement. With the non-electors the Colonel 
was a decided favourite ; the boys invariably hurrahed him ; whereas 
they jeered and uttered ironical cries after poor Barnes, asking, 
“ Who beat his wife h Who drove his children to the workhouse 1 ” 
and other unkind personal questions. The man upon whom the 
libertine Barnes had inflicted so cruel an injury in his early days, 


708 


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was now the Baronet’s bitterest enemy. He assailed him with 
curses and threats when they met, and leagued his brother workmen 
against him. The wretched Sir Barnes owned with contrition that 
the sins of his youth pursued him ; his enemy scoffed at the idea 
of Barnes’s repentance ; he was not moved at the grief, the punish- 
ment in his own family, the humiliation and remorse which the 
repentant prodigal piteously pleaded. No man was louder in his 
cries of mea culpa than Barnes ; no man professed a more edifying 
repentance. He was hat in hand to every black coat, established 
or dissenting. Repentance was to his interest, to be sure, but 
yet let us hope it was sincere. There is some hypocrisy of which 
one does not like even to entertain the thought; especially that 
awful falsehood which trades with divine truth, and takes the name 
of Heaven in vain. 

The “ Roebuck Inn,” at Newcome, stands in the market-place, 
directly facing the “ King’s Arms,” where, as we know, Colonel 
Newcome and uncompromising toleration held their headquarters. 
Immense banners of blue and yellow floated from every window 
of the “ King’s Arms,” and decorated the balcony from which the 
Colonel and his assistants were in the habit of addressing the 
multitude. Fiddlers and trumpeters, arrayed in his colours, 
paraded the town and enlivened it with their melodious strains. 
Other trumpeters and fiddlers, bearing the true-blue cockades and 
colours of Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., would encounter the Colonel’s 
musicians, on which occasions of meeting, it is to be feared, small 
harmony was produced. They banged each other with their 
brazen instruments. The warlike drummers thumped each other’s 
heads in lieu of the professional sheepskin. The town boys and 
street blackguards rejoiced in these combats, and exhibited their 
valour on one side or the other. The Colonel had to pay a long 
bill for broken brass, when he settled the little accounts of the 
election. 

In after times F. B. was pleased to describe the circumstances 
of a contest in which he bore a most distinguished part. It was 
F. B.’s opinion that his private eloquence brought over many 
waverers to the Colonel’s side, and converted numbers of the 
benighted followers of Sir Barnes Newcome. Bay ham’s voice was 
indeed magnificent, and could be heard from the “ King’s Arms ” 
balcony above the shout and roar of the multitude, the gongs and 
bugles of the opposition bands. He was untiring in his oratory — 
undaunted in the presence of the crowds below. He was immensely 
popular, F. B. Whether he laid his hand upon his broad chest, 
took off his hat and waved it, or pressed his blue and yellow ribands 
to his bosom, the crowd shouted, “ Hurrah ! silence ! bravo ! Bay ham 



NEWCOME VERSUS NEWCOME. 




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709 

for ever ! ” “ They would have carried me in triumph,” said F. B. ; 

“ if I had but the necessary qualification, I might be Member for 
Newcome this day or any other I chose.” 

I am afraid, in his conduct of the Colonel’s election, Mr. 
Bay ham resorted to acts of which his principal certainly would 
disapprove, and engaged auxiliaries whose alliance was scarcely 
creditable. Whose was the hand which flung the potato which 
struck Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., on the nose as he was harangu- 
ing the people from the “ Roebuck ” ? How came it that whenever 
Sir Barnes and his friends essayed to speak, such an awful yelling 
and groaning took place in the crowd below, that the words of those 
feeble orators were inaudible 1 Who smashed all the front windows 
of the “Roebuck” 1 ? Colonel Newcome had not words to express 
his indignation at proceedings so unfair. When Sir Barnes and his 
staff were hustled in the market-place and most outrageously shoved, 
jeered, and jolted, the Colonel from the “ King’s Arms ” organised 
a rapid sally, which he himself headed with his bamboo cane ; cut 
out Sir Barnes and his followers from the hands of the mob, and 
addressed those ruffians in a noble speech, of which the bamboo 
cane — Englishman — shame — fair-play, were the most emphatic 
expressions. The mob cheered Old Tom as they called him — they 
made way for Sir Barnes, who shrank pale and shuddering back 
into his hotel again — and who always persisted in saying that that 
old villain of a dragoon had planned both the assault and the rescue. 

“When the dregs of the people — the scum of the rabble, sir, 
banded together by the myrmidons of Sir Barnes Newcome, attacked 
us at the ‘ King’s Arms,’ and smashed ninety-six pounds’ worth of 
glass at one volley, besides knocking off the gold unicorn’s head and 
the tail of the British lion ; it was fine, sir,” F. B. said, “ to see 
how the Colonel came forward, and the coolness of the old boy in 
the midst of the action. He stood there in front, sir, with his old 
hat off, never so much as once bobbing his old head, and I think he 
spoke rather better under fire than he did when there was no danger. 
Between ourselves, he ain’t much of a speaker, the old Colonel ; he 
hems and hahs, and repeats himself a good deal. He hasn’t the 
gift of natural eloquence which some men have, Pendennis. You 
should have heard my speech, sir, on the Thursday in the Town 
Hall — that was something like a speech. Potts was jealous of it, 
and always reported me most shamefully.” 

In spite of his respectful behaviour to the gentlemen in black 
coats, his soup tickets and his flannel tickets, his own pathetic 
lectures and his sedulous attendance at other folks’ sermons, poor 
Barnes could not keep up his credit with the serious interest at 
Newcome, and the meeting-houses and their respective pastors and 


710 


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frequenters turned their backs upon him. The case against him 
was too flagrant : his enemy, the factory man, worked it with an 
extraordinary skill, malice, and pertinacity. Not a single man, 
woman, or child in Newcome but was made acquainted with Sir 
Barnes’s early peccadillo. Ribald ballads were howled through the 
streets describing his sin, and his deserved punishment. For very 
shame, the reverend dissenting gentlemen were obliged to refrain 
from voting for him ; such as ventured, believing in the sincerity of 
his repentance, to give him their voices, were yelled away from the 
polling places. A very great number who would have been his 
friends were compelled to bow to decency and public opinion, and 
supported the Colonel. 

Hooted away from the hustings and the public places whence 
the rival candidates addressed the free and independent electors, 
this wretched and persecuted Sir Barnes invited his friends and 
supporters to meet him at the “ Athenaeum Room ” — scene of his 
previous eloquent performances. But though this apartment was 
defended by tickets, the people burst into it ; and Nemesis, in the 
shape of the persevering factory man, appeared before the scared 
Sir Barnes and his puzzled committee. The man stood up and 
bearded the pale baronet. He had a good cause, and was in truth 
a far better master of debate than our banking friend, being a great 
speaker amongst his brother operatives, by whom political questions 
are discussed, and the conduct of political men examined, with a 
ceaseless interest and with an ardour and eloquence which are often 
unknown in what is called superior society. This man and his 
friends round about him fiercely silenced the clamour of “ Turn him 
out ! ” with which his first appearance was assailed by Sir Barnes’s 
hangers-on. He said, in the name of justice he would speak up ; 
if they were fathers of families, and loved their wives and daughters, 
he dared them to refuse him a hearing. Did they love their wives 
and their children ? it was a shame that they should take such a 
man as that yonder for their representative in Parliament. But the 
greatest sensation he made was when, in the middle of his speech, 
after inveighing against Barnes’s cruelty and parental ingratitude, 
he asked, “Where were Barnes’s children?” and actually thrust 
forward two, to the amazement of the committee and the ghastly 
astonishment of the guilty baronet himself. 

“ Look at them,” says the man : “ they are almost in rags, they 
have to put up with scanty and hard food ; contrast them with his 
other children, whom you see lording it in gilt carriages, robed in 
purple and fine linen, and scattering mud from their wheels over us 
humble people as we walk the streets : ignorance and starvation is 
good enough for these, for those others nothing can be too fine or 


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711 


too dear. What can a factory girl expect from such a fine high- 
bred, white-handed, aristocratic gentleman as Sir Barnes Newcome, 
Baronet, but to be cajoled, and seduced, and deserted, and left to 
starve ! When she has served my lord’s pleasure, her natural fate 
is to be turned into the street ; let her go and rot there, and her 
children beg in the gutter.” 

“ This is the most shameful imposture,” gasps out Sir Barnes ; 
“ these children are not — are not ” 

The man interrupted him with a bitter laugh. “No,” says he, 
“ they are not his ; that’s true enough, friends. It’s Tom Martin’s 
girl and boy, a precious pair of lazy little scamps. But, at first, 
he thought they were his children. See how much he knows about 
them ! He hasn’t seen lies children for years ; he would have left 
them and their mother to starve, and did, but for shame and fear. 
The old man, his father, pensioned them, and he hasn’t the heart 
to stop their wages now. Men of Newcome, will you have this 
man to represent you in Parliament ? ” And the crowd roared out 
“No”; and Barnes and his shamefaced committee slunk out of 
the place, and no wonder the dissenting clerical gentlemen were shy 
of voting for him. 

A brilliant and picturesque diversion in Colonel Newcome’s 
favour was due to the inventive genius of his faithful aide-de-camp, 
F. B. On the polling day, as the carriages full of voters came up 
to the market-place, there appeared nigh to the booths an open 
barouche, covered all over with riband, and containing Frederick 
Bay ham, Esq., profusely decorated with the Colonel’s colours, and 
a very old woman and her female attendant, who were similarly 
ornamented. It was good old Mrs. Mason, who was pleased with 
the drive and the sunshine, though she scarcely understood the 
meaning of the turmoil, with her maid by her side, delighted to 
wear such ribands, and sit in such a post of honour. Rising up in 
the carriage, F. B. took off his hat, bade his men of brass be silent, 
who were accustomed to bray “ See the Conquering Hero comes,” 
whenever the Colonel, or Mr. Bayham, his brilliant aide-de-camp, 
made their appearance; — bidding, we say, the musicians and the 
universe to be silent, F. B. rose, and made the citizens of Newcome 
a splendid speech. Good old unconscious Mrs. Mason was the 
theme of it, and the Colonel’s virtues and faithful gratitude in tend- 
ing her. “ She was his father’s old friend. She was Sir Barnes 
Newcome’s grandfather’s old friend. She had lived for more than 
forty years at Sir Barnes Newcome’s door, and how often had he 
been to see her? Did he go every week? No. Every month? 
No. Every year? No. Never in the whole course of his life 
had he set his foot into her doors ! ” (Loud yells, and cries of 


712 


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“Shame !”) “Never had he done her one single act of kindness. 
Whereas for years and years past, when he was away in India, 
heroically fighting the battles of his country, when he was dis- 
tinguishing himself at Assaye, and — and — Mulligatawny and 
Seringapatam, in the hottest of the fight and the fiercest of the 
danger, in the most terrible moment of the conflict and the crown- 
ing glory of the victory, the good, the brave, the kind old Colonel, 
— why should he say Colonel ? why should he not say Old Tom at 
once 1 ?” (immense roars of applause) — “ always remembered his dear 
old nurse and friend. Look at that shawl, boys, which she has got 
on ! My belief is that Colonel Newcome took that shawl in single 
combat, and on horseback, from the prime minister of Tippoo Sahib.” 
(Immense cheers and cries of “ Bravo, Bayham ! ”) “ Look at that 

brooch the dear old thing wears ! ” (he kissed her hand whilst so 
apostrophising her.) “ Tom Newcome never brags about his military 
achievements : he is the most modest as well as the bravest man in 
the world. What if I were to tell you that he cut that brooch 
from the throat of an Indian rajah 1 He’s man enough to do it.” 
(“ He is ! he is ! ” from all parts of the crowd.) “ What, you want 
to take the horses out, do you 1 ” (to the crowd, who were removing 
those quadrupeds). “ I ain’t agoing to prevent you ; I expected a3 
much of you. Men of Newcome, I expected as much of you, for I 
know you ! Sit still, old lady ; don’t be frightened, ma’am, they 
are only going to pull you to the ‘ King’s Arms,’ and show you to 
the Colonel.” 

This, indeed, was the direction in which the mob (whether in- 
flamed by spontaneous enthusiasm, or excited by cunning agents 
placed amongst the populace by F. B., I cannot say) now took the 
barouche and its three occupants. With a myriad roar and shout 
the carriage was dragged up in front of the “ King’s Arms,” from 
the balconies of which a most satisfactory account of the polling was 
already placarded. The extra noise and shouting brought out the 
Colonel, who looked at first with curiosity at the advancing pro- 
cession, and then, as he caught sight of Sarah Mason, with a blush 
and a bow of his kind old head. 

“ Look at him, boys ! ” cried the enraptured F. B., pointing up 
to the old man. “ Look at him ; the dear old boy ! Isn’t he an 
old trump 1 Which will you have for your Member, Barnes New- 
come or Old Tom 1 ” 

And as might be supposed, an immense shout of “ Old Tom ! ” 
arose from the multitude ; in the midst of which, blushing and 
bowing still, the Colonel went back to his committee-room : and the 
bands played “ See the Conquering Hero ” louder than ever ; and 
poor Barnes in the course of his duty having to come out upon his 


THE NEWCOMES 


713 


balcony at the “ Roebuck ” opposite, was saluted with a yell as 
vociferous as the cheer for the Colonel had been ; and old Mrs. 
Mason asked what the noise was about ; and after making several 
vain efforts, in dumb show, to the crowd, Barnes slunk back into 
his hole again as pale as the turnip which was flung at his head ; 
and the horses were brought, and Mrs. Mason driven home; and 
the day of election came to an end. 

Reasons of personal gratitude, as we have stated already, pre- 
vented his Highness the Prince de Montcontour from taking a part 
in this family contest. His brethren of the House of Higg, how- 
ever, very much to Florae’s gratification, gave their second votes 
to Colonel Newcome, carrying with them a very great number of 
electors : we know that in the present Parliament, Mr. Higg and 
Mr Bunce sit for the borough of Newcome. Having had monetary 
transactions with Sir Barnes Newcome, and entered largely into 
railway speculations with him, the Messrs. Higg had found reason 
to quarrel with the Baronet , accuse him of sharp practices to the 
present day, and have long stories to tell which do not concern us 
about Sir Barnes’s stratagems, grasping, and extortion. They and 
their following, deserting Sir Barnes, whom they had supported in 
previous elections, voted for the Colonel, although some of the 
opinions of that gentleman were rather too extreme for such sober 
persons. 

Not exactly knowing what his politics were when he commenced 
the canvass, I can’t say to what opinions the poor Colonel did not 
find himself committed by the time that the election was over. The 
worthy gentleman felt himself not a little humiliated by what he 
had to say and to unsay, by having to answer questions, to submit 
to familiarities, to shake hands which, to say truth, he did not care 
for grasping at all. His habits were aristocratic ; his education had 
been military ; the kindest and simplest soul alive, he yet disliked 
all familiarity, and expected from common people the sort of defer- 
ence which he had received from his men in the regiment. The 
contest saddened and mortified him ; he felt that he was using 
wrong means to obtain an end that perhaps was not right (for so 
his secret conscience must have told him) ; he was derogating from 
his own honour in tampering with political opinions, submitting to 
familiarities, condescending to stand by whilst his agents solicited 
vulgar suffrages or uttered claptraps about retrenchment and reform. 
“ I felt I was wrong,” he said to me in after days, though / was 
too proud to own my error in those times, and you and your good 
wife and my boy were right in protesting against that mad elec- 
tion.” Indeed, though we little knew what events were speedily to 
happen, Laura and I felt very little satisfaction when the result of 


714 


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the Newcome election was made known to us, and we found Sir 
Barnes Newcome third, and Colonel Thomas Newcome second upon 
the poll. 

Ethel was absent with her children at Brighton. She was 
glad, she wrote, not to have been at home during the election. Mr. 
and Mrs. C. were at Brighton too. Ethel had seen Mrs. C. and 
her child once or twice. It was a very fine child. “ My brother 
came down to us,” she wrote, “ after all was over. He is furious 
against M. de Montcontour, who, he says, persuaded the Whigs to 
vote against him, and turned the election.” 


CHAPTER LXX 


CHILTERN HUNDREDS 

W E shall say no more regarding Thomas Newcome’s political 
doings ; his speeches against Barnes, and the Baronet’s 
replies. The nephew was beaten by his stout old uncle. 
In due time the Gazette announced that Thomas Newcome, Esq., 
was returned as one of the Members of Parliament for the borough 
of Newcome ; and after triumphant dinners, speeches, and rejoicings, 
the Member came back to his family in London, and to his affairs 
in that city. 

The good Colonel appeared to be by no means elated by his 
victory. He would not allow that he was wrong in .engaging in 
that family war, of which we have just seen the issue ; though it 
may be that his secret remorse on this account in part occasioned 
his disquiet. But there were other reasons, which his family not 
long afterwards came to understand, for the gloom and low spirits 
which now oppressed the head of their home. 

It was observed (that is, if simple little Rosey took the trouble 
to observe) that the entertainments at the Colonel’s mansion were 
more frequent and splendid even than before ; the silver cocoa-nut 
tree was constantly in requisition, and around it were assembled 
many new guests, who had not formerly been used to sit under 
those branches. Mr. Sherrick and his wife appeared at those 
parties, at which the proprietor of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel made 
himself perfectly familiar. Sherrick cut jokes with the master of the 
house, which the latter received with a very grave acquiescence ; he 
ordered the servants about, addressing the butler as “ Old Cork- 
screw,” and bidding the footman, whom he loved to call by his 
Christian name, to “look alive.” He called the Colonel “New- 
come” sometimes, and facetiously speculated upon the degree of 
relationship subsisting between them now that his daughter was mar- 
ried to Clive’s uncle, the Colonel’s brother-in-law. Though I daresay 
Clive did not much relish receiving news of his aunt, Sherrick was 
sure to bring such intelligence when it reached him; and announced, 
in due time, the birth of a little cousin at Bogglywallah, whom the 
fond parents designed to name “ Thomas Newcome Honeyman.” 


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A dreadful panic and ghastly terror seized poor Clive on an 
occasion which he described to me afterwards. Going out from 
home one day with his father, he beheld a wine-merchant’s cart, 
from which hampers were carried down the area-gate into the lower 
regions of Colonel Newcome’s house. “ Sherrick & Co., Wine Mer- 
chants, Walpole Street,” was painted upon the vehicle. 

“ Good heavens ! sir, do you get your wine from him ? ” Clive 
cried out to his father, remembering Honeyman’s provisions in early 
times. The Colonel, looking very gloomy and turning red, said, 
“Yes, he bought wine from Sherrick, who had been very good- 
natured and serviceable; and who — and who, you know, is our 
connection now.” When informed of the circumstance by Clive, I 
too, as I confess, thought the incident alarming. 

Then Clive, with a laugh, told me of a grand battle which had 
taken place in consequence of Mrs. Mackenzie’s behaviour to the 
wine-merchant’s wife. The Campaigner had treated this very kind 
and harmless, but vulgar woman, with extreme hauteur — had talked 
loud during her singing — the beauty of which, to say truth, time 
had considerably impaired — had made contemptuous observations 
regarding her upon more than one occasion. At length the Colonel 
broke out in great wrath against Mrs. Mackenzie — bade her to 
respect that lady as one of his guests — and, if she did not like the 
company which assembled at his house, hinted to her that there 
were many thousand other houses in London where she could find 
a lodging. For the sake of her child, and her adored grandchild, 
the Campaigner took no notice of this hint ; and declined to remove 
from the quarters which she had occupied ever since she had become 
a grandmamma. 

I myself dined once or twice with my old friends, under the 
shadow of the pickle-bearing cocoa-nut tree ; and could not but 
remark a change of personages in the society assembled. The 
manager of the City branch of the B. B. C. was always present — 
an ominous-looking man, whose whispers and compliments seemed 
to make poor Clive, at his end of the table, very melancholy. 
With the City manager came the City manager’s friends, whose 
jokes passed gaily round, and who kept the conversation to them- 
selves. Once I had the happiness to meet Mr. Ratray, who had 
returned, filled with rupees from the Indian Bank; who told us 
many anecdotes of the splendour of Rummun Loll at Calcutta, and 
who complimented the Colonel on his fine house and grand dinners 
with sinister good-humour. Those compliments did not seem to 
please our poor friend ; that familiarity choked him. A brisk little 
chattering attorney, very intimate with Sherrick, with a wife of 
dubious gentility, was another constant guest. He enlivened the 


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717 


table by his jokes, and recounted choice stories about the aristo- 
cracy, with certain members of whom the little man seemed very 
familiar. He knew to a shilling how much this lord owed — and 
how much the creditors allowed to that marquis. He had been 
concerned with such and such a nobleman, who was now in the 
Queen’s Bench. He spoke of their lordships affably and without 
their titles — calling upon “ Louisa, my dear,” his wife, to testify to 
the day when Viscount Tagrag dined with them, and Earl Bareacres 
sent them the pheasants. F. B., as sombre and downcast as his 
hosts now seemed to be, informed me demurely that the attorney 
was a member of one of the most eminent firms in the City — that 
he had been engaged in procuring the Colonel’s parliamentary title 
for him — and in various important matters appertaining to the 
B. B. C. ; but my knowledge of the world and the law was suffi- 
cient to make me aware that this gentleman belonged to a well- 
known firm of money-lending solicitors, and I trembled to see such 
a person in the home of our good Colonel. Where were the generals 
and the judges'? Where were the fogeys and their respectable 
ladies ? Stupid they were, and dull their company, but better a 
stalled ox in their society, than Mr. Campion’s jokes over Mr. 
Sherrick’s wines. 

After the little rebuke administered by Colonel Newcome, Mrs. 
Mackenzie abstained from overt hostilities against any guests of her 
daughter’s father-in-law ; and contented herself by assuming grand 
and princess-like airs -in the company of the new ladies. They 
flattered her and poor little Rosey intensely. The latter liked their 
company no doubt. To a man of the world looking on, who has 
seen the men and morals of many cities, it was curious, almost 
pathetic, to watch that poor little innocent creature fresh and 
smiling, attired in bright colours and a thousand gewgaws, simper- 
ing in the midst of these darkling people — practising her little arts 
and coquetries, with such a court round about her. An unconscious 
little maid, with rich and rare gems sparkling on all her fingers, 
and bright gold rings as many as belonged to the late Old Woman 
of Banbury Cross — still she smiled and prattled innocently before 
these banditti — I thought of Zerlina and the Brigands, in “Fra 
Diavolo.” 

Walking away with F. B. from one of these parties of the 
Colonel’s, and seriously alarmed at what I had observed there, I 
demanded of Bayham whether my conjectures were not correct, 
that some misfortune overhung our old friend’s house? At first 
Bayham denied stoutly or pretended ignorance ; but at length, 
having reached the “Haunt” together, which I had not visited 
since I was a married man, we entered that place of entertainment, 


718 


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and were greeted by its old landlady and waitress, and accommo- 
dated with a quiet parlour. And here F. B., after groaning — after 
sighing — after solacing himself with a prodigious quantity of bitter 
beer — fairly burst out, and, with tears in his eyes, made a full 
and sad confession respecting this unlucky Bundelcund Banking 
Company. The shares had been going lower and lower, so that 
there was no sale now for them at all. To meet the liabilities the 
directors must have undergone the greatest sacrifices. He did not 
know — he did not like to think what the Colonel’s personal losses 
were. The respectable solicitors of the Company had retired long 
since, after having secured payment of a most respectable bill, and 
had given place to the firm of dubious law-agents of whom I had 
that evening seen a partner. How the retiring partners from India 
had been allowed to withdraw, and to take fortunes along with 
them, was a mystery to Mr. Frederick Bayham. The great Indian 
millionaire was in his, F. B.’s eyes, “a confounded old mahogany- 
coloured heathen humbug.” These fine parties which the Colonel 
was giving, and that fine carriage which was always flaunting about 
the Park with poor Mrs. Clive and the Campaigner, and the nurse 
and the baby, were, in F. B.’s opinion, all decoys and shams. He 
did not mean to say that the meals were not paid, and that the 
Colonel had to plunder for his horses’ corn ; but he knew that 
Sherrick, and the attorney, and the manager, insisted upon the 
necessity of giving these parties, and keeping up this state and 
grandeur, and opined that it was at the special instance of these 
advisers that the Colonel had contested the borough for which he 
was now returned. “Do you know how much that contest cost 1 ” 
asks F. B. “ The sum, sir, was awful ! and we have ever so much 
of it to pay. I came up twice from Newcome myself to -Campion 
and Sherrick about it. I betray no secrets — F. B., sir, would die 
a thousand deaths before he would tell the secrets of his benefactor ! 
— But, Pendenuis, you understand a thing or two. You know 
what o’clock it is, and so does yours truly, F. B., who drinks your 
health. I know the taste of Sherrick’s wine well enough. F. B., 
sir, fears the Creeks and all the gifts they bring. Confound his 
Amontillado ! I had rather drink this honest malt and hops all 
my life than ever see a drop of his abominable golden sherry. 
Golden 'l F. B. believes it is golden — and a precious deal dearer 
than gold too” — and herewith, ringing the bell, my friend asked 
for a second pint of the just-named and cheaper fluid. 

I have of late had to recount portions of my dear old friend’s 
history which must needs be told, and over which the writer does 
not like to dwell. If Thomas Newcome’s opulence was unpleasant 
to describe, and to contrast with the bright goodness and simplicity 


THE NEWCOMES 


719 

I remembered in former days, how much more painful is that part 
of his story to which we are now come perforce, and which the 
acute reader of novels has, no doubt, long foreseen ! Yes, sir, or 
madam, you are quite right in the opinion which you have held 
all along regarding that Bundelcund Banking Company, in which 
our Colonel has invested every rupee he possesses, Solvuntur 
rupees , &c. I disdain, for the most part, the tricks and surprises 
of the novelist’s art. Knowing, from the very beginning of our 
story, what was the issue of this Bundelcund Banking concern, I 
have scarce had patience to keep my counsel about it ; and when- 
ever I have had occasion to mention the Company, have scarcely 
been able to refrain from breaking out into fierce diatribes against 
that complicated, enormous, outrageous swindle. It was one of 
many similar cheats which have been successfully practised upon 
the simple folks, civilian and military, who toil and struggle — who 
fight with sun and enemy — who pass years of long exile and gallant 
endurance in the service of our empire in India. Agency-houses 
after agency-houses have been established, and have flourished in 
splendour and magnificence, and have paid fabulous dividends — 
and have enormously enriched two or three wary speculators — and 
then have burst in bankruptcy, involving widows, orphans, and 
countless simple people who trusted their all to the keeping of 
these unworthy treasurers. 

The failure of the Bundelcund Bank which we now have to 
record, was one only of many similar schemes ending in ruin. 
About the time when Thomas Newcome was chaired as Member 
of Parliament for the borough of which he bore the name, the great 
Indian merchant who was at the head of the Bundelcund Banking 
Company’s affairs at Calcutta, suddenly died of cholera at his palace 
at Barrackpore. He had been giving of late a series of the most 
splendid banquets with which Indian prince ever entertained a 
Calcutta society. The greatest and proudest personages of that 
aristocratic city had attended his feasts. The fairest Calcutta 
beauties had danced in his halls. Did not poor F. B. transfer 
from the columns of the Bengal Hurkaru to the Pall Mall Gazette 
the most astounding descriptions of those Asiatic Nights’ Entertain- 
ments, of which the very grandest was to come off on the night 
when cholera seized Rummun Loll in its grip % There was to have 
been a masquerade outvying all European masquerades in splendour. 
The two rival queens of Calcutta society were to have appeared 
each with her court around her. Young civilians at the college, 
and young ensigns fresh landed, had gone into awful expenses and 
borrowed money at fearful interest from the B. B. C. and other 
banking companies, in order to appear with befitting splendour as 


720 


THE NEW COMES 


knights qnd noblemen of Henrietta Maria’s Court (Henrietta Maria, 
wife of Hastings Hicks, Esq., Sudder Dewanee Adawlut), or as 
princes and warriors surrounding the palanquin of Lalla Rookh 
(the lovely wife of Hon. Cornwallis Bobus, Member of Council) : 
all these splendours were there. As carriage after carriage drove 
up from Calcutta, they were met at Rummun Loll’s gate by ghastly 
weeping servants, who announced their master’s decease. 

On the next day the Bank at Calcutta was closed, and the 
day after, when heavy bills were presented which must be paid, 
although by this time Rummun Loll was not only dead but buried, 
and his widows howling over his grave, it was announced through- 
out Calcutta that but 800 rupees were left in the treasury of the 
B. B. C. to meet engagements to the amount of four lakhs then 
immediately due, and sixty days afterwards the shutters were closed 
at No. 175 Lothbury, the London offices of the B. B. C. of India, 
and <£35,000 worth of their bills refused by their agents, Messrs. 
Baines, Jolly & Co., of Fog Court. 

When the accounts of that ghastly bankruptcy arrived from 
Calcutta, it was found, of course, that the merchant prince Rummun 
Loll owed the B. B. C. twenty-five lakhs of rupees, the value of 
which was scarcely even represented by his respectable signature. 
It was found that one of the auditors of the bank, the generally 
esteemed Charley Condor (a capital fellow, famous for his good 
dinners and for playing low-comedy characters at the Chowringhee 
Theatre) was indebted to the bank in £90,000 ; and also it was 
discovered that the revered Baptist Bellman, Chief Registrar of 
the Calcutta Tape and Sealing-Wax Office (a most valuable and 
powerful amateur preacher, who had converted two natives, and 
whose serious soirees were thronged at Calcutta), had helped him- 
self to £73,000 more, for which he settled in the Bankruptcy Court 
before he resumed his duties in his own. In justice to Mr. Bellman, 
it must be said that he could have had no idea of the catastrophe 
impending over the B. B. C. For only three weeks before that 
great bank closed its doors, Mr. Bellman, as guardian of the chil- 
dren of his widowed sister, Mrs. Colonel Green, had sold the whole 
of the late Colonel’s property out of Company’s paper and invested 
it in the bank, which gave a high interest, and with bills of which, 
drawn upon their London correspondents, he had accommodated 
Mrs. Colonel Green when she took her departure for Europe with 
her numerous little family on board the Burrumpooter. 

And now you have the explanation of the title of this chapter, 
and know wherefore Thomas Newcome never sat in Parliament. 
Where are our dear old friends now ? Where are Rosey’s chariots 
and horses'? Where her jewels and gewgaws'? Bills are up in 


THE NEWCOMES 


721 


the fine new house. Swarms of Hebrew gentlemen with their 
hats on are walking about the drawing-rooms, peering into the 
bedrooms, weighing and poising the poor old silver cocoa-nut tree, 
eyeing the plate and crystal, thumbing the damask of the curtains, 
and inspecting ottomans, mirrors, and a hundred articles of splendid 
trumpery. There is Rosey ’s boudoir, which her father-in-law loved 
to ornament — there is Clive’s studio with a hundred sketches — 
there is the Colonel’s bare room at the top of the house, with his 
little iron bedstead and ship’s drawers, and a camel trunk or two 
which have accompanied him on many an Indian march, and his 
old regulation sword, and that one which the native officers of his 
regiment gave him when he bade them farewell. I can fancy the 
brokers faces as they look over this camp wardrobe, and that the 
uniforms will not fetch much in Holywell Street. There is the 
old one still, and that new one which he ordered and wore when 
poor little Rosey was presented at Court. I had not the heart to 
examine their plunder, and go amongst those wreckers. F. B. 
used to attend the sale regularly, and report its proceedings to us 
with eyes full of tears. “A fellow laughed at me,” says F. B., 
“because when I came into the dear old drawing-room I took 
my hat off. I told him that if he dared say another word I 
would knock him down.” I think F. B. may be pardoned in 
this instance for emulating the office of auctioneer. Where arc 
you, pretty Rosey, and poor little helpless baby 1 Where are you, 
dear Clive — gallant young friend of my youth 1 Ah ! it is a sad 
story — a melancholy page to pen ! Let us pass it over quickly — 
I love not to think of my friend in pain. 


2 z 


8 


CHAPTER LXXI 

IN WHICH MRS. CLIVE NEWCOME’S CARRIAGE IS ORDERED 


A LL the friends of the Newcoine family, of course, knew the 
/-X disaster which had befallen the good Colonel, and I was 
* * aware, for my own part, that not only his own, but almost 

the whole of Rosey Newcome’s property was involved in the common 
ruin. Some proposals of temporary relief were made to our friends 
from more quarters than one, but were thankfully rejected ; and we 
were led to hope that the Colonel, having still his pension secured 
to him, which the law could not touch, might live comfortably 
enough in the retirement to which, of course, he would betake him- 
self, when the melancholy proceedings consequent on the bankruptcy 
were brought to an end. It was shown that he had been egregiously 
duped in the transaction ; that his credulity had cost him and his 
family a large fortune ; that he had given up every penny which 
belonged to him ; that there could not be any sort of stain upon 
his honest reputation. The judge before whom he appeared spoke 
with feeling and regard of the unhappy gentleman ; the lawyer who 
examined him respected the grief and fall of that simple old man. 
Thomas Newcome took a little room near the court where his affairs 
and the affairs of the company were adjudged ; lived with a frugality 
which never was difficult to him ; and once when perchance I met 
him in the City, avoided me, with a bow and courtesy that was 
quite humble, though proud and somehow inexpressibly touching 
to me. Fred Bavham was the only person whom he admitted. 
Fred always faithfully insisted upon attending him in and out of 
court. J. J. came to me immediately after he heard of the disaster, 
eager to place all his savings at the service of his friends. Laura 
and I came to London, and were urgent with similar offers. Our 
good friend declined to see any of us. F. B., again, with tears 
trickling on his rough cheeks, and a break in his voice, told me 
he feared that affairs must be very bad indeed, for the Colonel 
absolutely denied himself a cheroot to smoke. Laura drove to his 
lodgings and took him a box, which was held up to him as he 
came to open the door to my wife’s knock by our smiling little 
boy. He patted the child on his golden head and kissed him. 


THE NEWCOMES 


723 


My wife wished he would have done as much for her; but he 
would not — though she owned she kissed his hand. He drew it 
across his eyes and thanked her in a very calm and stately manner 
— but he did not invite her within the threshold of his door, saying 
simply, that such a room was not a fit place to receive a lady, “as 
you ought to know very well, Mrs. Smith,” he said to the landlady, 
who had accompanied my wife up the stairs. “ He will eat scarcely 
anything,” the woman told us ; “ his meals come down untouched ; 
his candles are burning all night, almost, as he sits poring over his 
papers.” “ He was bent — he who used to walk so uprightly,” 
Laura said. He seemed to have grown many years older, and 
was, indeed, quite a decrepit old man. 

“ I am glad they have left Clive out of the bankruptcy,” the 
Colonel said to Bayliam ; it was almost the only time when his 
voice exhibited any emotion. “ It was very kind of them to leave 
out Clive, poor boy, and I have thanked the lawyers in court.” 
Those gentlemen, and the judge himself, were very much moved 
at this act of gratitude. The judge made a very feeling speech to 
the Colonel when he came up for his certificate. He passed very 
different comments on the conduct of the Manager of the Bank, 
when that person appeared for examination. He wished that the 
law had power to deal with those gentlemen who had come home 
with large fortunes from India, realised but a few years before the 
bankruptcy. Those gentlemen had known how to take care of 
themselves very well, and as for the Manager, is not his wife giving 
elegant balls at her elegant house at Cheltenham at this very day 'l 

What weighed most upon the Colonel’s mind, F. B. imagined, 
was the thought that he had been the means of inducing many poor 
friends to embark their money in this luckless speculation. Take 
J. J.’s money after he had persuaded old Bidley to place £200 in 
Indian shares ! Good God, he and his family should rather perish 
than he would touch a farthing of it ! Many fierce words were 
uttered to him by Mrs. Mackenzie, for instance ; by her angry son- 
in-law at Musselburgh, Josey’s husband ; by Mr. Smee, B.A., and 
two or three Indian officers, friends of his own, who had entered 
into the speculation on his recommendation. These rebukes Thomas 
Newcome bore with an affecting meekness, as his faithful F. B. de- 
scribed to me, striving with many oaths and much loudness to carry 
off his own emotion. But what moved the Colonel most of all, was 
a letter which came at this time from Honeyman in India, saying 
that he was doing well— that of course he knew of his benefactor’s 
misfortune, and that he sent a remittance which, D. V., should be 
annual, in payment of his debt to the Colonel and his good sister 
at Brighton. “ On receipt of this letter,” said F. B., “ the old man 


724 


THE NEWCOMES 


was fairly beat — the letter, with the bill in it, dropped out of his 
hands. He clasped them both together, shaking in every limb, and 
his head dropped down on his breast as he said, ‘ I thank my God 
Almighty for this ! ’ and he sent the cheque off to Miss Honeyman 
by the post that night, sir, every shilling of it ; and he passed his 
old arm under mine ; and we went out to Tom’s Coffee-house, and 
he ate some dinner for the first time for ever so long, and drank a 
couple of glasses of port wine, and F. B. stood it, sir, and would 
stand his heart’s blood for that dear old boy.” 

It was on a Monday morning that those melancholy shutters 
were seen over the offices of the Bundelcund Bank in Lothbury, 
which were not to come down until the rooms were handed over 
to some other, and, let us trust, more fortunate speculators. The 
Indian bills had arrived, and been protested in the City on the 
previous Saturday. The Campaigner and Mrs. Rosey had arranged 
a little party to the theatre that evening, and the gallant Captain 
Goby had agreed to quit the delights of the “ Flag ” Club, in order 
to accompany the ladies. Neither of them knew what was happen- 
ing in the City, or could account, otherwise than by the common 
domestic causes, for Clive’s gloomy despondency and his father’s sad 
reserve. Clive had not been in the City on this day. He had 
spent it, as usual, in his studio, boud.e by his wife, and not dis- 
turbed by the mess-room raillery of the Campaigner. They dined 
early, in order to be in time for the theatre. Goby entertained 
them with the latest jokes from the smoking-room at the “Flag,” 
and was in his turn amused by the brilliant plans for the season 
which Rosey and her mamma sketched out. The entertainments 
which Mrs. Clive proposed to give, the ball — she was dying for a 
masked ball — just such a one as that described in the Pall Mall 
Gazette of last week, out of that paper with the droll title, the 
Bengal Hurlcaru , which the merchant prince, the head of the bank, 
you know, in India, had given at Calcutta. “We must have a ball 
too,” says Mrs. Mackenzie, “ society demands it of you.” “ Of 
course it does,” echoes Captain Goby ; and he bethought him of a 
brilliant circle of young fellows from the “ Flag,” whom he would 
bring in splendid uniform to dance with the pretty Mrs. Clive 
Newcome. 

After the dinner — they little knew it was to be their last in 
that fine house — the ladies retired to give a parting kiss to baby ; 
a parting look to the toilettes, with which they proposed to fascinate 
the inhabitants of the pit and public boxes at the Olympic. Goby 
made vigorous play with the claret-bottle during the brief interval 
of potation allowed to him ; he, too, little deeming that he should 


THE NEWCOMES 


725 


never drink bumper there again ; Clive looking on with the melan- 
choly and silent acquiescence which had, of late, been his part in 
the household. The carriage was announced — the ladies came down 
— pretty capotes on — the lovely Campaigner, Goby vowed, looking 
as young and as handsome as her daughter, by Jove, — and the hall- 
door was opened to admit the two gentlemen and ladies to their 
carriage, when, as they were about to step in, a Hansom cab drove 
up rapidly, in which was perceived Thomas Newcome’s anxious face. 
He got out of the vehicle — his own carriage making way for him — 
the ladies still on the steps. “ Oh, the play ! I forgot,” said the 
Colonel. 

“ Of course we are going to the play, papa,” cries little Rosey, 
with a gay little tap of her hand. 

“ I think you had best not,” Colonel New r come said gravely. 

“ Indeed my darling child has set her heart upon it, and I would 
not have her disappointed for the world in her situation,” cries the 
Campaigner, tossing up her head. 

The Colonel for reply bade his coachman drive to the stables, 
and come for further orders ; and, turning to his daughter’s guest, 
expressed to Captain Goby his regret that the proposed party could 
not take place on that evening, as he had matter of very great 
importance to communicate to his family. On hearing this news, 
and understanding that his further company was not desirable, the 
Captain, a man of great presence of mind, arrested the Hansom 
cabman, who was about to take his departure, and who blithely, 
knowing the Club and its inmates full well, carried off the jolly 
Captain to finish his evening at the “ Flag.” 

“Has it come, father?” said Clive, with a sure prescience, 
looking in his father’s face. 

The father took and grasped the hand which his son held out. 
“ Let us go back into the dining-room,” he said. They entered it, 
and he filled himself a glass of wine out of the bottle still standing 
amidst the dessert. He bade the butler retire, who was lingering 
about the room and sideboard, and only wanted to know whether 
his master would have dinner, that was all. And, this gentleman 
having withdrawn, Colonel Newcome finished his glass of sherry 
and broke a biscuit ; the Campaigner assuming an attitude of sur- 
prise and indignation, whilst Rosey had leisure to remark that papa 
looked very ill, and that something must have happened. 

The Colonel took both her hands and drew her towards him and 
kissed her, whilst Rosey’s mamma, flouncing down on a chair, beat 
a tattoo upon the tablecloth with her fan. “ Something has hap- 
pened, my love,” the Colonel said very sadly ; “ you must show all 
your strength of mind, for a great misfortune has befallen us.” 


726 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Good heavens, Colonel ! what is it ? don’t frighten my beloved 
child ! ” cries the Campaigner, rushing towards her darling, and 
enveloping her in her robust arms. “What can have happened? 
don’t agitate this darling child, sir ! ” and she looked indignantly 
towards the poor Colonel. 

“We have received the very worst news from Calcutta — a con- 
firmation of the news by the last mail, Clivy, my boy.” 

“ It is no news to me. I have always been expecting it, father,” 
says Clive, holding down his head. 

“ Expecting what ? What have you been keeping back from 
us? In what have you been deceiving us, Colonel Newcome?” 
shrieks the Campaigner; and Rosey, crying out, “Oh, mamma, 
mamma ! ” begins to whimper. 

“ The chief of the bank in India is dead,” the Colonel went 
on. “ He has left its affairs in worse than disorder. We are, 
I fear, ruined, Mrs. Mackenzie.” And the Colonel went on to 
tell how the bank could not open on Monday morning, and its 
bills to a great amount had already been protested in the City 
that day. 

Rosey did not understand half these news, or comprehend the 
calamity which was to follow; but Mrs. Mackenzie, rustling in 
great wrath, made a speech, of which the anger gathered as she 
proceeded : in which she vowed and protested that her money 
which the Colonel, she did not know from what motives, had 
induced her to subscribe, should not be sacrificed, and that have 
it she would, the bank shut or not, the next Monday morning — - 
that her daughter had a fortune of her own which her poor dear 
brother James should have divided, and would have divided, much 
more fairly, had he not been wrongly influenced — she would not 
say by whom, and she commanded Colonel Newcome upon that 
instant, if he was, as he always pretended to be, an honourable 
man, to give an account of her blessed darling’s property, and to 
pay back her own, every sixpence of it : she would not lend it 
for an hour longer. And to see that that dear blessed child now 
sleeping unconsciously upstairs, and his dear brothers and sisters 
who might follow — for Rosey was a young woman, a poor 
innocent creature, too young to be married, and never would have 
been married had she listened to her mamma’s advice — she 
demanded that baby, and all succeeding babies, should have their 
rights , and should be looked to by their grandmother, if their 
father’s father was so unkind, and so wicked, and so unnatural, 
as to give their money to rogues and deprive them of their 
just bread. 

Rosey began to cry more loudly than ever during the utterance 


THE NEWCOMES 


727 


of mamma’s sermon, so loudly that Clive peevishly cried out, “ Hold 
your tongue ! ” on which the Campaigner, clutching her daughter to 
her breast again, turned on her son-in-law, and abused him as she 
had abused his father before him, calling out that they were both 
in a conspiracy to defraud her child, and the little darling upstairs, 
of its bread, and she would speak, yes, she would, and no power 
should prevent her, and her money she would have on Monday, as 
sure as her poor dear husband, Captain Mackenzie, was dead, and 
she never would have been cheated so, yes, cheated , if he had been 
alive. 

At the word “ cheated ” Clive broke out with an execration — 
the poor Colonel with a groan of despair — the widow’s storm con- 
tinued, and above that howling tempest of words rose Mrs. Clive’s 
piping scream, who went off into downright hysterics at last, in 
which she was encouraged by her mother, and in which she gasped 
out frantic ejaculations regarding baby ; dear, darling, ruined baby, 
and so forth. 

The sorrow-stricken Colonel had to quell the women’s tongues 
and shrill anger, and his son’s wrathful replies, who could not bear 
the weight of Mrs. Mackenzie upon him ; and it was not until these 
three were allayed, that Thomas Newcome was able to continue his 
sad story, to explain what had happened, and what the actual state 
of the case was, and to oblige the terror-stricken women at length 
to hear something like reason. 

He then had to tell them, to their dismay, that he would inevi- 
tably be declared a bankrupt in the ensuing week ; that the whole 
of his property in that house, as elsewhere, would be seized and 
sold for the creditors’ benefit ; and that his daughter had best 
immediately leave a home where she would be certainly subject to 
humiliation and annoyance. “ I would have Clive, my boy, take 
you out of the country, and — and return to me when I have need 
of him, and shall send for him,” the father said fondly, in reply to 
a rebellious look in his son’s face. “ I would have you quit this 
house as soon as possible. Why not to-night? The law blood- 
hounds may be upon us ere an hour is over — at this moment for 
what I know.” 

At that moment the door-bell was heard to ring, and the women 
gave a scream apiece, as if the bailiffs were actually coming to take 
possession. Rosey went off in quite a series of screams, peevishly 
repressed by her husband, and always encouraged by mamma, who 
called her son-in-law an unfeeling wretch. It must be confessed 
that Mrs. Clive Newcome did not exhibit much strength of mind, 
or comfort her husband much at a moment when he needed con- 
solation. 


728 


THE NEWCOMES 


From angry rebellion and fierce remonstrance, this pair of women 
now passed to an extreme terror and desire for instantaneous flight. 
They would go that moment — they would wrap that blessed child 
up in its shawls — and nurse should take it anywhere — anywhere, 
poor neglected thing. “ My trunks,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie, *• you 
know are ready packed — I am sure it is not the treatment which I 
have received — it is nothing but my duty and my religion — and 
the protection which I owe to this blessed unprotected — yes, 
unprotected , and robbed, and cheated, darling child — which have 
made me stay a single day in this house. I never thought I should 
have been robbed in it, or my darlings with their fine fortunes flung 
naked on the world. If my Mac was here, you never had dared to 
have done this, Colonel Newcome — no, never. He had his faults — 
Mackenzie had — but he would never have robbed his own children ! 
Come away, Rosey, my blessed love, come let us pack your things, 
and let us go and hide our heads in sorrow somewhere. Ah ! didn’t 
I tell you to beware of all painters, and that Hoby was a true gentle- 
man, and loved you with all his heart, and would never have cheated 
you out of your money, for which I will have justice as sure as 
there is justice in England.” 

During this outburst the Colonel sat utterly scared and silent, 
supporting his poor head between his hands. When the harem 
had departed he turned sadly to his son. Clive did not believe 
that his father was a cheat and a rogue. No, thank God ! The 
two men embraced with tender cordiality and almost happy emotion 
on the one side and the other. Never for one moment could Clive 
think his dear old father meant wrong, though the speculations 
were unfortunate in which he had engaged — though Clive had not 
liked them ; it was a relief to his mind that they were now come 
to an end ; they should all be happier now, thank God ! those 
clouds of distrust being removed. Clive felt not one moment’s 
doubt but that they should be able to meet fortune with a brave 
face; and that happier, much happier days were in store for him 
than ever they had known since the period of this confounded 
prosperity. 

“Here’s a good end to it,” says Clive, with flashing eyes and 
a flushed face, “ and here’s a good health till to-morrow, father ! ” 
and he filled into two glasses the wine still remaining in the flask. 
“Good-bye to our fortune, and bad luck go with her — I puff the 
prostitute away — Si celeres quatit pennas , you remember what 
we used to say at Grey Friars — resigno quoe dedit, et mea virtute 
me involvo , probamque pauperiem sine dote queer o” And he 
pledged his father, who drank his wine, his hand shaking as he 
raised the glass to his lips, and his kind voice trembling as he 


THE NEWCOMES 


729 

uttered the well-known old school words, with an emotion that 
was as sacred as a prayer. Once more, and with hearts full of 
love, the two men embraced. Clive’s voice would tremble now 
if he told the story as it did when he spoke to me in happier 
times, one calm summer evening when we sat together and talked 
of dear old days. 

Thomas Newcome explained to his son the plan which, to his 
mind, as he came away from the City after the day’s misfortunes, 
he thought it was best to pursue. The women and the child were 
clearly best out of the way. “And you too, my boy, must be 
on duty with them until I send for you, which I will do if your 
presence can be of the least service to me, or is called for by — 
by — our honour,” said the old man, with a drop in his voice. 
“ You must obey me in this, dear Clive, as you have done in 
everything, and been a good, and dear, and obedient son to me. 
God pardon me for having trusted to my own simple old brains 
too much, and not to you who know so much better. You will 
obey me this once more, my boy — you will promise me this?” 
and the old man as he spoke took Clive’s hand in both his, and 
fondly caressed it. 

Then with a shaking hand he took out of his pocket his old 
purse with the steel rings, which he had carried for many and 
many a long year. Clive remembered it, and his father’s face 
how it would beam with delight, when he used to take that very 
purse out in Clive’s boyish days and tip him just after he left 
school. “ Here are some notes and some gold,” he said. “ It is 
Rosey’s honestly, Clive dear, her half-year’s dividend, for which 
you will give an order, please, to Sherrick. Pie has been very 
kind and good, Sherrick. All the servants were providentially 
paid last week — there are only the outstanding week’s bills out 
— we shall manage to meet those, I dare say. And you will see 
that Rosey only takes away such clothes for herself and her baby 
as are actually necessary, won’t you, dear? the plain things you 
know — none of the fineries — they may be packed in a petara or 
two, and you will take them with you — but the pomps and 
vanities, you know, we will leave behind— the pearls and bracelets, 
and the plate, and all that rubbish— and I will make an inventory 
of them to-morrow when you are gone and give them up, every 
rupee’s worth, sir, every anna, by Jove, to the creditors.” 

The darkness had fallen by this time, and the obsequious 
butler entered to light the dining-room lamps. “You have been 
a very good and kind servant to us, Martin,” says the Colonel, 
making him a low bow. “I should like to shake you by the 
hand. We must part company now, and I have no doubt you 


730 


THE NEWCOMES 


and your fellow-servants will find good places, all of you, as you 
merit, Martin — as you merit. Great losses have fallen upon our 
family — -we are ruined, sir — we are ruined ! The great Bundelcund 
Banking Company has stopped payment in India, and our branch 
here must stop on Monday. Thank my friends downstairs for their 
kindness to me and my family.” Martin bowed in silence with 
great respect. He and his comrades in the servants’ hall had 
been expecting this catastrophe quite as long as the Colonel him- 
self, who thought he had kept his affairs so profoundly secret. 

Clive went up into his women’s apartments, looking with but 
little regret, I dare say, round those cheerless nuptial chambers with 
all their gaudy fittings ; the fine looking-glasses, in which poor Rosey’s 
little person had been reflected ; the silken curtains under which 
he had lain by the poor child’s side, wakeful and lonely. Here 
he found his child’s nurse, and his wife, and his wife’s mother, 
busily engaged with a multiplicity of boxes ; with flounces, feathers, 
fal-lals, and finery which they were stowing away in this trunk and 
that ; while the baby lay on its little pink pillow breathing softly, 
a little pearly fist placed close to its mouth. The aspect of the 
tawdry vanities scattered here and there chafed and annoyed the 
young man. He kicked the robes over with his foot. When Mrs. 
Mackenzie interposed with loud ejaculations, he sternly bade her 
to be silent, and not wake the child. His words were not to be 
questioned when he spoke in that manner. “You will take nothing 
with you, Rosey, but what is strictly necessary — only two or three 
of your plainest dresses, and what is required for the boy. What 
is in this trunk ? ” Mrs. Mackenzie stepped forward and declared, 
and the nurse vowed upon her honour, and the lady’s-maid asserted 
really now upon her honour too, that there was nothing but what 
was most strictly necessary in that trunk, to which affidavits, when 
Clive applied to his wife, she gave a rather timid assent. 

“ Where are the keys of that trunk 1 ” Upon Mrs. Mackenzie’s 
exclamation of “ What nonsense ! ” Clive, putting his foot upon 
the flimsy oil -covered box, vowed he would kick the lid off 
unless it was instantly opened. Obeying this grim summons, the 
fluttering women produced the keys, and the black box was opened 
before him. 

The box was found to contain a number of objects which Clive 
pronounced to be by no means necessary to his wife’s and child’s 
existence. Trinket-boxes and favourite little gimcracks, chains, 
rings, and pearl necklaces, the tiara poor Rosey had worn at Court 
— the feathers and the gorgeous train which had decorated the little 
person — all these were found packed away in this one receptacle ; 
and in another box, I am sorry to say, were silver forks and spoons 


THE NEWCOMES 


731 


(the butler wisely judging that the rich and splendid electrotype 
ware might as well be left behind) — all the silver forks, spoons, 
and ladles, and our poor old friend the cocoa-nut tree, which these 
female robbers would have carried out of the premises. 

Mr. Clive Newcome burst out into fierce laughter when he saw 
the cocoa-nut tree ; he laughed so loud that baby awoke, and his 
mother-in-law called him a brute, and the nurse ran to give its 
accustomed quietus to the little screaming infant. Rosey’s eyes 
poured forth a torrent of little protests, and she would have cried 
yet more loudly than the other baby, had not her husband, again 
fiercely checking her, sworn with a dreadful oath, that unless she 
told him the whole truth, “ By heavens she should leave the house 
with nothing but what covered her ! ” Even the Campaigner could not 
make head against Clive's stern resolution ; and the incipient in- 
surrection of the maids and the mistresses was quelled by his spirit. 
The lady’s-maid, a flighty creature, received her wages and took 
her leave : but the nurse could not find it in her heart to quit her 
little nursling so suddenly, and accompanied Clive’s household in 
the journey upon which those poor folks were bound. What stolen 
goods were finally discovered when the family reached foreign parts 
were found in Mrs. Mackenzie’s trunks, not in her daughter’s : a 
silver filigree basket, a few teaspoons, baby’s gold coral, and a costly 
crimson velvet bound copy of the Hon. Miss Grimstone’s Church 
Service, to which articles, having thus appropriated them, Mrs. 
Mackenzie henceforth laid claim as her own. 

So when the packing was done a cab was called to receive the 
modest trunks of this fugitive family — the coachman was bidden 
to put his horses to again, and for the last time poor Rosey New- 
come sat in her own carriage, to which the Colonel conducted her 
with his courtly old bow, kissing the baby as it slept once more 
unconscious in its nurse’s embrace, and bestowing a very grave and 
polite parting salute upon the Campaigner. 

Then Clive and his father entered a cab on which the trunks 
were borne, and they drove to the Tower Stairs, where the ship lay 
which was to convey them out of England ; and during that journey, 
no doubt, they talked over their altered prospects, and I am sure 
Clive’s father blessed his son fondly, and committed him and his 
family to a good God’s gracious keeping, and thought of him with 
sacred love when they had parted, and Thomas Newcome had 
returned to his lonely house to watch and to think of his ruined 
fortunes, and to pray that he might have courage under them ; that 
he might bear his own fate honourably ; and that a gentle one 
might be dealt to those beloved beings for whom his life had been 
sacrificed in vain. 


CHAPTER LXXII 


BELISAR1US 

W HEN the sale of Colonel Newcome’s effects took place, a 
friend of the family bought in for a few shillings those two 
swords which had hung, as we have said, in the good man’s 
chamber, and for which no single broker present had the heart to 
bid. The head of Clive’s father, painted by himself, which had 
always kept its place in the young man’s studio, together with a 
lot of his oil-sketchings, easels, and painting apparatus, were 
purchased by the faithful J. J., who kept them until his friend 
should return to London and reclaim them, and who showed the 
most generous solicitude in Clive’s behalf. J. J. was elected of the 
Royal Academy this year, and Clive, it was evident, was working 
hard at the profession which he had always loved ; for he sent 
over three pictures to the Academy, and I never knew man more 
mortified than the affectionate J. J., when two of these unlucky 
pieces were rejected by the Committee for the year. One pretty 
little piece, called “ The Stranded Boat,” got a fair place on the 
Exhibition walls, and, you may be sure, was loudly praised by a 
certain critic in the Pall Mall Gazette. The picture was sold on 
the first day of the Exhibition at the price of twenty-five pounds, 
which the artist demanded; and when the kind J. J. wrote to 
inform his friend of this satisfactory circumstance, and to say that 
he held the money at Clive’s disposal, the latter replied with many 
expressions of sincere gratitude, at the same time begging him 
directly to forward the money, with our old friend Thomas 
Newcome’s love, to Mrs Sarah Mason, at Newcome. But J. J. 
never informed his friend that he himself was the purchaser of the 
picture ; nor was Clive made acquainted with the fact until some 
time afterwards, when he found it hanging in Ridley’s studio. 

I have said that we none of us were aware at this time what 
was the real state of Colonel Newcome’s finances, and hoped that, 
after giving up every shilling of his property, which was confiscated 
to the creditors of the Bank, he had still, from his retiring pension 
and military allowances, at least enough reputably to maintain 
him. On one occasion, having business in the City, I there met 



6 < 


TO BE SOLD. 







THE NEWCOMES 


733 


Mr. Sherrick. Affairs had been going ill with that gentleman : he 
had been let in terribly, he informed me, by Lord Levant’s insol- 
vency, having had large money transactions with his Lordship. 
“ There’s none of them so good as old Newcome,” Mr. Sherrick 
said with a sigh. “That was a good one — that was an honest 
man if ever I saw one — with no more guile and no more idea of 
business than a baby. Why didn’t he take my advice, poor old 
cove 1 — he might be comfortable now. Why did he sell away that 
annuity, Mr. Pendennis ? I got it done for him w r hen nobody else 
perhaps could have got it done for him — for the security ain’t 
worth twopence if Newcome wasn’t an honest man ; — but I know 
he is, and would rather starve and eat the nails off his fingers than 
not keep to his word, the old trump. And when he came to me, a 
good two months before the smash of the Bank, which I knew it, 
sir, and saw that it must come — when he came and raised three 
thousand pounds to meet them d — d electioneering bills, having to 
pay lawyers, commission, premium, life-insurance — you know the 
whole game, Mr. P. — I as good as went down on my knees to him 
— I did — at the North and South American Coffee-house, where he 
was to meet the party about the money, and said, { Colonel, don’t 
raise it — I tell you, let it stand over — let it go in along with the 
bankruptcy that’s a-coming ’— but he wouldn’t, sir — he went on 
like an old Bengal tiger, roaring about his honour; he paid the 
bills every shilling — infernal long bills they were — and it’s my 
belief that, at this minute, he ain’t got fifty pounds a year of his 
own to spend. I would send him back my commission — I would, 
by Jove — only times is so bad, and that rascal Levant has let me 
in. It went to my heart to take the old cock’s money — but it’s 
gone — that and ever so much more — and Lady Whittlesea’s chapel 
too, Mr. P. Hang that young Levant ! ” 

Squeezing my hand after this speech, Sherrick ran across the 
street after some other capitalist who was entering the Diddlesex 
Insurance Office, and left me very much grieved and dismayed at 
finding that my worst fears in regard to Thomas Newcome were 
confirmed. Should we confer with his wealthy family respecting 
the Colonel’s impoverished condition? Was his brother Hobson 
Newcome aware of it ? As for Sir Barnes, the quarrel between 
him and his uncle had been too fierce to admit of hopes of relief 
from that quarter. Barnes had been put to very heavy expenses 
in the first contested election ; had come forward again immediately 
on his uncle’s resignation, but again had been beaten by a more 
liberal candidate, his quondam former friend, Mr. Higg — who 
formally declared against Sir Barnes — and who , drove him finally 
out of the representation of Newcome. From this gentleman 


734 THE NEWCOMES 

it was vain of course for Colonel Newcome’s friends to expect 
relief. 

How to aid him ? He was proud — past work — nearly seventy 
years old. “Oh, why did those cruel academicians refuse Clive’s 
pictures'?” cries Laura. “I have no patience with them — had 
the pictures been exhibited I know who might have bought them — 
but that is vain now. He would suspect at once, and send her 
money away. 0 Pen ! why, why didn’t he come when I wrote 
that letter to Brussels ? ” 

From persons so poorly endowed with money as ourselves, any 
help, but of the merest temporary nature, was out of the question. 
We knew our friends too well not to know that they would disdain 
to receive it. It was agreed between me and Laura that at any 
rate I should go and see Clive. Our friends indeed were at a very 
short distance from us, and, having exiled themselves from England, 
could yet see its coasts from their windows upon any clear day. 
Boulogne was their present abiding place — refuge of how many 
thousands of other unfortunate Britons — and to this friendly port 
I betook myself speedily, having the address of Colonel Newcome. 
His quarters were in a quiet grass-grown old street of the Old 
Town. None of the family were at home when I called. There 
was indeed no servant to answer the bell, but the good-natured 
French domestic of a neighbouring lodger told me that the young 
monsieur went out every day to make his designs, and that I should 
probably find the elder gentleman upon the rampart, where he was 
in the custom of going every day. I strolled along by those pretty 
old walks and bastions, under the pleasant trees which shadow 
them, and the grey old gabled houses from which you look down 
upon the gay new city, and the busy port, and the piers stretching 
into the shining sea, dotted with a hundred white sails or black 
smoking steamers, and bounded by the friendly lines of the bright 
English shore. There are few prospects more charming than the 
familiar view from those old French walls — few places where young 
children may play, and ruminating old age repose more pleasantly 
than on those peaceful rampart gardens. 

I found our dear old friend seated on one of the benches, a 
newspaper on his knees, and by his side a red-cheeked little French 
lass, upon whose lap Thomas Newcome the younger lay sleeping. 
The Colonel’s face flushed up when he saw me. As he advanced 
a step or two towards me I could see that he trembled in his walk. 
His hair had grown almost quite white. He looked now to be 
more than his age — he whose carriage last year had been so 
erect, whose figure had been so straight and manly. I was 
very much moved at meeting him, and at seeing the sad traces 


THE NEWCOMES 735 

which pain and grief had left in the countenance of the dear 
old man. 

“ So you are come to see me, my good young friend,” cried 
the Colonel, with a trembling voice. “It is very very kind of 
you. Is not this a pretty drawing-room to receive our friends in ? 
We have not many of them now. Boy and I come and sit here 
for hours every day. Hasn’t he grown a fine boy ? He can say 
several words now, sir, and can walk surprisingly well. Soon he 
will be able to walk with his grandfather, and then Marie will 
not have the trouble to wait upon either of us.” He repeated this 
sentiment in his pretty old French, and turning with a bow to 
Marie. The girl said monsieur knew very well that she did 
not desire better than to come out with baby ; that it was 
better than staying at home, pardieu ; and, the clock striking at 
this moment, she rose up with her child, crying out that it was 
time to return, or madame would scold. 

“ Mrs. Mackenzie has rather a short temper,” the Colonel said 
with a gentle smile. “Poor thing she has had a great deal to 
bear in consequence, Pen, of my imprudence. I am glad you never 
took shares in our bank. I should not be so glad to see you as I 
am now, if I had brought losses upon you as I have upon so many 
of my friends.” I, for my part, trembled to hear that the good 
old man was under the domination of the Campaigner. 

“ Bayham sends me the paper regularly ; he is a very kind 
faithful creature. How glad I am that he has got a snug berth 
in the City ! His company really prospers, I am happy to think, 
unlike some companies you know of, Pen. I have read your two 
speeches, sir, and Clive and I liked them very much. The poor 
boy works all day at his pictures. You know he has sold one 
at the Exhibition, which has given us a great deal of heart — and 
he has completed two or three more — and I am sitting to him 
now for — what do you think, sir? for Belisarius. Will you give 
Belisarius and the Obolus a kind word ? ” 

“My dear dear old friend,” I said in great emotion, “if you 
will do me the kindness to take my obolus or to use my services 
in any way, you will give me more pleasure than ever I had from 
your generous bounties in old days. Look, sir, I wear the watch 
which you gave me when you went to India. Did you not tell 
me then to look after Clive and serve him if I could? Can’t I 
serve him now ? ” and I went on further in this strain, asseverating 
with great warmth and truth that my wife’s affection and my own 
were most sincere for both of them, and that our pride would be 
to be able to help such dear friends. 

The Colonel said I had a good heart, and my wife had, though 


736 


THE NEWCOMES 


— though He did not finish this sentence, but I could inter- 

pret it without need of its completion. My wife and the two ladies 
of Colonel Newcome’s family never could be friends, however much 
my poor Laura tried to be intimate with these women. Her very 
efforts at intimacy caused a frigidity and hauteur which Laura 
could not overcome. Little Rosey and her mother set us down as 
two aristocratic personages ; nor for our parts were we very much 
disturbed at this opinion of the Campaigner and little Rosey. 

I talked with the Colonel for half-an-hour or more about his 
affairs, which indeed were very gloomy, and Clive’s prospects, of 
which he strove to present as cheering a view as possible. He was 
obliged to confirm the news which Sherrick had given me, and to 
own, in fact, that all his pension was swallowed up by a payment 
of interest and life-insurance for sums which he had been compelled 
to borrow. How could he do otherwise than meet his engage- 
ments? Thank God, he had Clive’s full approval for what he had 
done — had communicated the circumstance to his son almost im- 
mediately after it took place, and that was a comfort to him — an 
immense comfort. “ For the women are very angry,” said the poor 
Colonel ; “ you see they do not understand the laws of honour, at 
least as we understand them : and perhaps I was wrong in hiding 
the truth as I certainly did from Mrs. Mackenzie, but I acted for 
the best — I hoped against hope that some chance might turn in our 
favour. God knows I had a hard task enough in wearing a cheer- 
ful face for months, and in following my little Rosey about to her 
parties and balls; but poor Mrs. Mackenzie has a right to be angry, 
only I wish my little girl did not side with her mother so entirely, 
for the loss of her affection gives me pain.” 

So it was as I suspected. The Campaigner ruled over this 
family, and added to all their distresses by her intolerable presence 
and tyranny. “Why, sir,” I ventured to ask, “if, as I gather from 
you — and I remember,” I added with a laugh, “certain battles 
royal which Clive described to me in old days — if you and the 
Campai — Mrs. Mackenzie do not agree, why should she continue to 
live with you, when you would all be so much happier apart ? ” 

“ She has a right to live in the house,” says the Colonel ; “it 
is I who have no right in it. I am a poor old pensioner, don’t you 
see? subsisting on Rosey ’s bounty. We live on the hundred a year 
secured to her at her marriage, and Mrs. Mackenzie has her forty 
pounds of pension which she adds to the common stock. It is I 
who have made away with every shilling of Rosey’s £17,000, God 
help me, and with £1500 of her mother’s. They put their little 
means together, and they keep us — me and Clive. What can we 
do for a living ? Great God ! What can we do ? Why, I am so 


THE NEWCOMES 


737 


useless that even when my poor boy earned ,£25 for his picture, I 
felt we were bound to send it to Sarah Mason, and you may fancy 
when this came to Mrs. Mackenzie’s ears what a life my boy and 
I led. I have never spoken of these things to any mortal soul — 
I even don’t speak of them with Clive — but seeing your kind 
honest face has made me talk — you must pardon my garrulity — 
I am growing old, Arthur. This poverty and these quarels have 

beaten my spirit down There, I shall talk on this subject no 

more. I wish, sir, I could ask you to dine with us, but” — and 
here he smiled — “ we must get the leave of the higher powers.” 

I was determined, in spite of prohibitions and Campaigners, to 
see my old friend Clive, and insisted on walking back with the 
Colonel to his lodgings, at the door of which we met Mrs. Mac- 
kenzie and her daughter. Rosey blushed up a little — looked at 
her mamma — and then greeted me with a hand and a curtsey. 
The Campaigner also saluted me in a majestic but amicable manner, 
made no objection even to my entering her apartments and seeing 
the condition to which they ivere reduced : this phrase was uttered 
with particular emphasis and a significant look towards the Colonel, 
who bowed his meek head, and preceded me into the lodgings, 
which were in truth very homely, pretty, and comfortable. The 
Campaigner was an excellent manager — restless, bothering, brushing 
perpetually. Such fugitive gimcracks as they had brought away 
with them decorated the little salon. Mrs. Mackenzie, who took 
the entire command, even pressed me to dine and partake, if so 
fashionable a gentleman would condescend to partake, of a humble 
exile’s fare. No fare was perhaps very pleasant to me in company 
with that woman, but I wanted to see my dear old Clive, and 
gladly accepted his valuable mother-in-law’s not disinterested hos- 
pitality. She beckoned the Colonel aside; whispered to him, 
putting something into his hand ; on which he took his hat and 
went away. Then Rosey was dismissed upon some other pretext, 
and I had the felicity to be left alone with Mrs. Captain Mackenzie. 

She instantly improved the occasion ; and with great eagerness 
and volubility entered into her statement of the present affairs and 
position of this unfortunate family. She described darling Rosey’s 
delicate state, poor thing — nursed with tenderness and in the lap 
of luxury — brought up with every delicacy and the fondest mother 
— never knowing in the least how to take care of herself, and likely 
to fall down and perish unless the kind Campaigner were by to 
prop and protect her. She was in delicate health — very delicate — 
ordered cod-liver oil by the doctor. Heaven knows how he could 
be paid for those expensive medicines out of the pittance to which 
the imprudence — the most culpable and designing imprudence , and 
8 3 a 


738 


THE NEWCOMES 


extravagance, anrl folly of Colonel Newcome had reduced them ! 
Looking out from the window as she spoke, I saw — we both saw — 
the dear old gentleman sadly advancing towards the house, a parcel 
in his hand. Seeing his near approach, and that our interview was 
likely to come to an end, Mrs. Mackenzie rapidly whispered to me 
that she knew I had a good heart — that I had been blessed by 
Providence with a fine fortune, which I knew how to keep better 
than some folks — and that if, as no doubt was my intention — for 
with what other but a charitable view could I have come to see 
them 1 — “ and most generous and noble was it of you to come, and 
I»always thought it of you, Mr. Pendennis, whatever other people 
said to the contrary ” — if I proposed to give them relief, which was 
most needful — and for which a mother 1 's blessings would follow me 
— let it be to her, the Campaigner, that my loan should be confided 
— for as for the Colonel, he is not fit to be trusted with a shilling, 
and has already flung away immense sums upon some old woman 
he keeps in the country, leaving his darling Rosey without the 
actual necessaries of life. 

The woman’s greed and rapacity — the flattery with which she 
chose to belabour me at dinner, so choked and disgusted me, that 
I could hardly swallow the meal, though my poor old friend had 
been sent out to purchase a pate from the pastrycook’s for my 
especial refection. Clive was not at the dinner. He seldom 
returned till late at night on sketching days. Neither his wife 
nor his mother-in-law seemed much to miss him ; and seeing that 
the Campaigner engrossed the entire share of the conversation, and 
proposed not to leave me for five minutes alone with the Colonel, 
I took leave rather speedily of my entertainers, leaving a message 
for Clive, and a prayer that he would come and see me at my hotel. 


CHAPTER LXXIII 


IN WHICH BEL1SARIUS RETURNS FROM EXILE 

I WAS sitting in the dusk in my room at the “ Hotel des Bains,” 
when the visitor for whom I hoped made his appearance in the 
person of Clive, with his broad shoulders, and broad hat, and a 
shaggy beard, which he had thought fit in his quality of painter to 
assume. Our greeting it need not be said was warm ; and our talk, 
which extended far into the night, very friendly and confidential. 
If I make my readers confidants in Mr. Clive’s private affairs, I 
ask my friend’s pardon for narrating his history in their behoof. 
The world had gone very ill with my poor Clive, and I do not 
think that the pecuniary losses which had visited him and his 
father afflicted him near so sorely as the state of his home. In a 
pique with the woman he loved, and from that generous weakness 
which formed part of his character, and which led him to acquiesce 
in most wishes of his good father, the young man had gratified the 
darling desire of the Colonel’s heart, and taken the wife whom his 
two old friends brought to him. Rosey, who was also, as we have 
shown, of a very obedient and ductile nature, had acquiesced gladly 
enough in her mamma’s opinion, that she was in love with the rich 
and handsome young Clive, and accepted him for better or worse. 
So undoubtedly would this good child have accepted Captain Hoby, 
her previous adorer, have smilingly promised fidelity to the Captain 
at church, and have made a very good, happy, and sufficient 
little wife for that officer, — had not mamma commanded her to jilt 
him. What wonder that these elders should wish to see their two 
dear young ones united 1 ? They began with suitable age, money, 
good temper, and parents’ blessings. It is not the first time that 
with all these excellent helps to prosperity and happiness, a 
marriage has turned out unfortunately — a pretty, tight ship gone to 
wreck that set forth on its voyage with cheers from the shore, and 
every prospect of fair wind and fine weather. 

If Clive was gloomy and discontented even when the honey- 
moon had scarce waned, and he and his family sat at home in state 
and splendour under the boughs of the famous silver cocoa-nut tree, 
what was the young man’s condition now in poverty, when they 


740 


THE NEWCOMES 


had no love along with a scant dinner of herbs ; when his mother- 
in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father ate — when a 
vulgar, coarse-minded woman pursued with brutal sarcasm and 
deadly rancour one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the 
world — when an ailing wife, always under some one’s domination, 
received him with helpless hysterical cries and reproaches — when a 
coarse female tyrant, stupid, obstinate, utterly unable to compre- 
hend the son’s kindly genius, or the father’s gentle spirit, bullied 
over both, using the intolerable undeniable advantage which her 
actual wrongs gave her to tyrannise over these two wretched men ! 
He had never heard the last of that money which they had sent to 
Mrs. Mason, Clive said. When the knowledge of the fact came to 
the Campaigner’s ears, she raised such a storm as almost killed the 
poor Colonel, and drove his son half mad. She seized the howling 
infant, vowing that its unnatural father and grandfather were bent 
upon starving it — she consoled and sent Rosey into hysterics — she 
took the outlawed parson to whose church they went, and the 
choice society of bankrupt captains, captains’ ladies, fugitive stock- 
brokers’ wives, and dingy frequenters of billiard-rooms, and refugees 
from the Bench, into her counsels ; and in her daily visits amongst 
these personages, and her walks on the pier, whither she trudged 
with poor Rosey in her train, Mrs. Mackenzie made known her 
own wrongs and her daughter’s — showed how the Colonel, having 
robbed and cheated them previously, was now living upon them, 
insomuch that Mrs. Bolter, the levanting auctioneer’s wife, would 
not make the poor old man a bow when she met him — that Mrs. 
Captain Kitely, whose husband had lain for seven years past in 
Boulogne gaol, ordered her son to cut Clive ; and when, the child 
being sick, the poor old Colonel went for arrowroot to the chemist’s, 
young Snooks, the apothecary’s assistant, refused to allow him to 
take the powder away without previously depositing the money. 

He had no money, Thomas Newcome. He gave up every 
farthing. After having impoverished all around him, he had no 
right, he said, to touch a sixpence of the wretched pittance remain- 
ing to them — he had even given up his cigar, the poor old man, the 
companion and comforter of forty years. He was “ not fit to be 
trusted with money,” Mrs. Mackenzie said, and the good man owned, 
as he ate his scanty crust, and bowed his noble old head in silence 
under that cowardly persecution. 

And this, at the end of threescore and seven or eight years, was 
to be the close of a life which had been spent in freedom and 
splendour, and kindness and honour ; this the reward of a noble 
heart — the tomb and prison of a gallant warrior who had ridden in 
twenty battles — whose course through life had been a bounty 


THE NEW COMES 


741 


wherever it had passed — whose name had been followed by bless- 
ings, and whose career was to end here — here — in a mean room, in 
a mean alley of a foreign town — a low furious woman standing over 
him and stabbing the kind defenceless breast with killing insult and 
daily outrage ! 

As we sat together in the dark, Clive told me this wretched 
story, which was wrung from him with a passionate emotion that 
I could not but keenly share. He wondered the old man lived, 
Clive said. Some of the woman’s taunts and jibes, as he could see, 
struck his father so that he gasped and started back as if some one 
had lashed him with a whip. “ He would make away with him- 
self,” said poor Clive, “but he deems this is his punishment, and 
that he must bear it as long as it pleases God. He does not care 
for his own losses, as far as they concern himself ; but these re- 
proaches of Mrs. Mackenzie, and some things which were said to 
him in the Bankruptcy Court by one or two widows of old friends, 
who were induced through his representations to take shares in that 
infernal bank, have affected him dreadfully. I hear him lying 
awake and groaning at night, God bless him ! Great God ! what 
can I do — what can I do*? ” burst out the young man in a dreadful 
paroxysm of grief. “ I have tried to get lessons — I went to London 
on the deck of a steamer, and took a lot of drawings with me — tried 
picture-dealers — pawnbrokers — Jews — Moss, whom you may re- 
member at Gandish’s, and who gave me, for forty-two drawings, £18. 
I brought the money back to Boulogne. It was enough to pay the 
doctor, and bury our last poor little dead baby. Tenez , Pen, you 
must give me some supper, I have had nothing all day but a pain 
de deux sous , I can’t stand it at home. — My heart’s almost broken 
— you must give me some money, Pen, old boy. I know you will. 
I thought of writing to you, but I wanted to support myself, you 
see. When I went to London with the drawings I tried George’s 
chambers, but he was in the country. I saw Crackthorpe in the 
street, in Oxford Street, but I could not face him, and bolted down 
Han way Yard. I tried, and I could not ask him, and I got the 
£18 from Moss that day, and came home with it.” 

Give him money'? of course I will give him money — my dear 
old friend ! And, as an alternative and a wholesome shock to check 
that burst of passion and grief in which the poor fellow indulged, 
I thought fit to break into a very fierce and angry invective on my 
own part, which served to disguise the extreme feeling of pain and 
pity that I did not somehow choose to exhibit. I rated Clive 
soundly, and taxed him with unfriendliness and ingratitude for not 
having sooner applied to friends who would think shame of them- 
selves whilst he was in need. Whatever he wanted was his as 


742 


THE NEWCOMES 


much as mine. I could not understand how the necessity of the 
family should, in truth, be so extreme as he described it, for after 
all many a poor family lived upon very much less ; but I uttered 
none of these objections, checking them with the thought that 
Clive, on his first arrival at Boulogne, entirely ignorant of the 
practice of economy, might have imprudently engaged in expenses 
which had reduced him to this present destitution.* 

I took the liberty of asking about debts, and of these Clive gave 
me to understand there were none — at least none of his or his 
father’s contracting. “ If we were too proud to borrow, and I think 
we were wrong, Pen, my dear old boy — I think we were wrong now 
— at least, we were too proud to owe. My colourman takes his 
bill out in drawings, and I think owes me a trifle. He got me 
some lessons at fifty sous a ticket — a pound the ten — from an 
economical swell who has taken a chateau here, and has two 
flunkeys in livery. He has four daughters, who take advantage of 
the lessons, and screws ten per cent, upon the poor colourman’s 
pencils and drawing-paper. It’s pleasant work to give the lessons 
to the children ; and to be patronised by the swell : and not 
expensive to him, is it, Pen? But I don’t mind that, if I could 
but get lessons enough : for, you see, besides our expenses here, we 
must have some more money, and the dear old governor would die 
outright if poor old Sarah Mason did not get her £50 a year.” 

And now there arrived a plentiful supper, and a bottle of good 
wine, of which the giver was not sorry to partake after the meagre 
dinner at three o’clock, to which I had, been invited by the Cam- 
paigner ; and it was midnight when I walked back with my friend 
to his house in the upper town ; and all the stars of heaven were 
shining cheerily ; and my dear Clive’s face wore an expression of 
happiness, such as I remembered in old days, as we shook hands 
and parted, with a “ God bless you.” 

To Clive’s friend, revolving these things in his mind, as he lay 
in one of those most snug and comfortable beds at the excellent 
“ Hotel des Bains,” it appeared that this town of Boulogne was a 
very bad market for the artist’s talents ; and that he had best bring 
them to London, where a score of old friends would assuredly be 
ready to help him. And if the Colonel, too, could be got away 
from the domination of the Campaigner, I felt certain that the dear 
old gentleman could but profit by his leave of absence. My wife 
and I at this time inhabited a spacious old house in Queen’s Square, 
Westminster, where there was plenty of room for father and son. 

* I did not know at the time that Mrs. Mackenzie had taken entire super- 
intendence of the family treasury — and that this exemplary woman was putting 
away, as she had done previously, sundry little sums to meet rainy days. 


THE NEWCOMES 


743 


I knew that Laura would be delighted to welcome these guests — 
may the wife of every worthy gentleman who reads these pages be 
as ready to receive her husband’s friends ! It was the state of 
Rosey’s health, and the Campaigner’s authority and permission, 
about which I was in doubt, and whether this lady’s two slaves 
would be allowed to go away. 

These cogitations kept the present biographer Jong awake, and 
he did not breakfast next day until an hour before noon. I had 
the coffee-room to myself by chance, and my meal was not yet 
ended when the waiter announced a lady to visit Mr. Pendennis, 
and Mrs. Mackenzie made her appearance. No signs of care or 
poverty were visible in the attire or countenance of the buxom 
widow. A handsome bonnet decorated within with a profusion of 
poppies, bluebells, and ears of corn ; a jewel on her forehead, not 
costly, but splendid in appearance, and glittering artfully over that 
central spot from which her wavy chestnut hair parted to cluster 
in ringlets round her ample cheeks ; a handsome India shawl, 
smart gloves, a rich silk dress, a neat parasol of blue with pale 
yellow lining, a multiplicity of glittering rings, and a very splendid 
gold watch and chain, which I remembered in former days as 
hanging round poor Rosey’s white neck, — all these adornments set 
off the widow’s person, so that you might have thought her a 
wealthy capitalist’s lady, and never could have supposed that she 
was a poor, cheated, ruined, robbed, unfortunate Campaigner. 

Nothing could be more gracious than the accueil of this lady. 
She paid me many handsome compliments about my literary works 
— asked most affectionately for dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear 
children — and then, as I expected, coming to business, contrasted 
the happiness and genteel position of my wife and family with the 
misery and wrongs of her own blessed child and grandson. She 
never could call that child by the odious name which he received at 
his baptism. I knew what bitter reasons she had to dislike the 
name of Thomas Newcome. 

She again rapidly enumerated the wrongs she had received at 
the hands of that gentleman ; mentioned the vast sums of money 
out of which she and her soul’s darling had been tricked by that 
poor muddle-headed creature, to say no worse of him ; and described 
finally their present pressing need. The doctors, the burial, Rosey’s 
delicate condition, the cost of sweetbreads, calf’s-foot jelly, and cod- 
liver oil, were again passed in a rapid calculation before me ; and 
she ended her speech by expressing her gratification that I had 
attended to her advice of the previous day, and not given Clive 
Newcome a direct loan ; that the family wanted it, the Campaigner 
called upon Heaven to witness; that Clive and his absurd poor 


744 


THE NEWCOMES 


father would fling guineas out of the window was a fact equally 
certain ; the rest of the argument was obvious, namely, that Mr. 
Pendennis should administer a donation to herself. 

I had brought but a small sum of money in my pocket-book, 
though Mrs. Mackenzie, intimate with bankers, and having, thank 
Heaven, in spite of all her misfortunes, the utmost confidence of all 
her tradesmen, hinted a perfect willingness on her part to accept an 
order upon her friends, Hobson Brothers of London. 

This direct thrust I gently and smilingly parried by asking Mrs. 
Mackenzie whether she supposed a gentleman who had just paid an 
electioneering bill, and had, at the best of times, but a very small 
income, might sometimes not be in a condition to draw satisfactorily 
upon Messrs. Hobson or any other banker % Her countenance fell 
at this remark, nor was her cheerfulness much improved by the 
tender of one of the two bank-notes which then happened to be in 
my possession. I said that I had a use for the remaining note, 
and that it would not be more than sufficient to pay my hotel bill 
and the expenses of my party back to London. 

My party 1 I had here to divulge, with some little trepidation, 
the plan which I had been making overnight; to explain how I 
thought that Clive’s great talents were wasted at Boulogne, and 
could only find a proper market in London ; how I was pretty 
certain, through my connection with booksellers, to find some ad- 
vantageous employment for him, and would have done so months 
ago had I known the state of the case ; but I had believed, until 
within a very few days since, that the Colonel, in spite of his bank- 
ruptcy, was still in the enjoyment of considerable military pensions. 

This statement, of course, elicited from the widow a number of 
remarks not complimentary to my dear old Colonel. He might 
have kept his pensions had he not been a fool — he was a baby about 
money matters — misled himself and everybody — was a log in the 
house, &e. &c. &c. 

I suggested that his annuities might possibly be put into some 
more satisfactory shape — that I had trustworthy lawyers with 
whom I would put him in communication — that he had best come 
to London to see to these matters — and that my wife had a large 
house where she would most gladly entertain the two gentlemen. 

This I said with some reasonable dread — fearing, in the first 
place, her refusal ; in the second, her acceptance of the invitation, 
with a proposal, as our house was large, to come herself and inhabit 
it for a while. Had I not seen that Campaigner arrive for a month 
at poor James Binnie’s house in Fitzroy Square, and stay there for 
many years'? Was I not aware that when she once set her foot in 
a gentleman’s establishment, terrific battles must ensue before she 


THE NEWCOMES 


745 


could be dislodged ? Had she not once been routed by Clive 1 and 
was she not now in command and possession? Do I not, finally, 
know something of the world ; and have I not a weak, easy temper ? 
I protest it was with terror that I awaited the widow’s possible 
answer to my proposal. 

To my great relief, she expressed the utmost approval of both 
my plans. I was uncommonly kind, she was sure, to interest 
myself about the two gentlemen, and for her blessed Rosey’s sake, 
a fond mother thanked me. It was most advisable that Clive 
should earn some money by that horrid profession which he had 
chosen to adopt — trades she called it. She was clearly anxious to 
get rid both of father and son, and agreed that the sooner they 
went the better. 

We walked back arm-in-arm to the Colonel’s quarters in the 
Old Town, Mrs. Mackenzie, in the course of our walk, doing me the 
honour to introduce me by name to several dingy acquaintances 
whom we met sauntering up the street, and imparting to me, as 
each moved away, the pecuniary cause of his temporary resi- 
dence in Boulogne. Spite of Rosey’s delicate state of health, Mrs. 
Mackenzie did not hesitate to break the news to her of the gentle- 
men’s probable departure abruptly and eagerly, as if the intelligence 
was likely to please her : — and it did, rather than otherwise. The 
young woman, being in the habit of letting mamma judge for her, 
continued it in this instance ; and whether her husband stayed or 
went, seemed to be equally content or apathetic. “And is it not 
most kind and generous of dear Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis to propose 
to receive Mr. Newcome and the Colonel?” This opportunity for 
gratitude being pointed out to Rosey, she acquiesced in it straight- 
way — it was very kind of me, Rosey was sure. “ And don’t you 
ask after dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children — you poor dear 
suffering darling child?” Rosey, who had neglected this inquiry, 
immediately hoped Mrs. Pendennis and the children were well. 
The overpowering mother had taken utter possession of this poor 
little thing. Rosey’s eyes followed the Campaigner about, and 
appealed to her at all moments. She sat under Mrs. Mackenzie 
as a bird before a boa-constrictor, doomed — fluttering, fascinated ; 
scared and fawning as a whipt spaniel before a keeper. 

The Colonel was on his accustomed bench on the rampart at 
this sunny hour. I repaired thither, and found the old gentleman 
seated by his grandson, who lay, as yesterday, on the little bonne’s 
lap, one of his little purple hands closed round the grandfather’s 
finger. “ Hush ! ” says the good man, lifting up his other finger 
to his mustachio, as I approached, “ Boy’s asleep. II est bien joli 


746 


THE NEWCOMES 


quand il dort — le Boy, n’est-ce pas, Marie?” The maid believed 
monsieur well — the boy was a little angel. “ This maid is a most 
trustworthy, valuable person, Pendennis,” the Colonel said, with 
much gravity. 

The boa-constrictor had fascinated him too — the lash of that 
woman at home had cowed that helpless, gentle, noble spirit. As 
I looked at the head so upright and manly, now so beautiful and 
resigned — the year of his past life seemed to pass before me 
somehow in a flash of thought. I could fancy the accursed 
tyranny — the dumb acquiescence — the brutal jeer — the helpless 
remorse — the sleepless nights of pain and recollection — the gentle 
heart lacerated with deadly stabs — and the impotent hope. I own 
I burst into a sob at the sight, and thought of the noble suffering 
creature, and hid my face and turned away. 

He sprang up, releasing his hand from the child’s, and placing 
it, the kind shaking hand, on my shoulder. “ What is it, Arthur — 
my dear boy?” he said, looking wistfully in my face. “No bad 
news from home, my dear ? Laura and the children well ? ” 

The emotion was mastered in a moment, I put his arm under 
mine, and as we slowly sauntered up and down the sunny walk 
of the old rampart, I told him how I had come with special 
commands from Laura to bring him for a while to stay with us, 
and to settle his business, which I was sure had been woefully 
mismanaged, and to see whether we could not find the means 
of getting some little out of the wreck of the property for the 
boy yonder. 

At first Colonel Newcome would not hear of quitting Boulogne, 
where Rosey would miss him — he was sure she would want him — 
but before the ladies of his family, to whom we presently returned, 
Thomas Newcome’s resolution was quickly recalled. He agreed 
to go, and Clive coming in at this time was put in possession of 
our plan and gladly acquiesced in it. On that very evening I came 
with a carriage to conduct my two friends to the steamboat. Their 
little packets were made and ready. There was no pretence of 
grief at parting on the women’s side, but Marie, the little maid, 
with Boy in her arms, cried sadly; and Clive heartily embraced 
the child ; and the Colonel, going back to give it one more kiss, 
drew out of his neckcloth a little gold brooch which he wore, and 
which, trembling, he put into Marie’s hand, bidding her take good 
care of Boy till his return. 

“ She is a good girl — a most faithful, attached girl, Arthur, do 
you see ? ” the kind old gentleman said ; “ and I had no money to 
give her — no, not one single rupee.” 


CHAPTER LXXIV 


IN WHICH CLIVE BEGINS THE WORLD 

W E are ending our history, and yet poor Clive is but 
beginning the world. Henceforth he has to earn the 
bread which he eats ; and, as I saw his labours, his trials, 
and his disappointments, I could not but compare his calling with 
my own. 

The drawbacks and penalties attendant upon our profession are 
taken into full account, as we well know, by literary men and 
their friends. Our poverty, hardships, and disappointments are 
set forth with great emphasis, and often with too great truth by 
those who speak of us ; but there are advantages belonging to our 
trade which are passed over, I think, by some of those who exercise 
it and describe it, and for which, in striking the balance of our 
accounts, we are not always duly thankful. We have no patron, 
so to speak — we sit in antechambers no more, waiting the present 
of a few guineas from my lord, in return for a fulsome dedication. 
We sell our wares to the book-purveyor, between whom and us 
there is no greater obligation than between him and his paper- 
maker or printer. In the great towns in our country immense 
stores of books are provided for us, with librarians to class them, 
kind attendants to wait upon us, and comfortable appliances for 
study. We require scarce any capital wherewith to exercise our 
trade. What other so-called learned profession is equally fortunate 1 
A doctor, for example, after carefully and expensively educating 
himself, must invest in house and furniture, horses, carriage, and 
men-servants, before the public patient will think of calling him in. 
I am told that such gentlemen have to coax and wheedle dowagers, 
to humour hypochondriacs, to practise a score of little subsidiary 
arts in order to make that of healing profitable. How many many 
hundreds of pounds has a barrister to sink upon his stock-in-trade 
before his returns are available 1 There are the costly charges of 
university education — the costly chambers in the Inn of Court — 
the clerk and his maintenance — the inevitable travels on circuit — 
certain expenses, all to be defrayed before the possible client makes 
his appearance, and the chance of fame or competency arrives. 


748 


THE NEWCOMES 


The prizes are great, to be sure, in the law, but what a prodigious 
sum the lottery-ticket costs ! If a man of letters cannot win, 
neither does he risk, so much. Let us speak of our trade as we 
fiud it, and not be too eager in calling out for public compassion. 

The artists, for the most part, do not cry out their woes as 
loudly as some gentlemen of the literary fraternity, and yet I think 
the life of many of them is harder ; their chances even more pre- 
carious, and the conditions of their profession less independent and 

agreeable than ours. I have watched Smee, Esquire, R.A., 

flattering and fawning, and at the same time boasting and swagger- 
ing, poor fellow, in order to secure a sitter. I have listened to a 
Manchester magnate talking about fine arts before one of J. J.’s 
pictures, assuming the airs of a painter, and laying down the most 
absurd laws respecting art. I have seen poor Tomkins bowing a 
rich amateur through a private view, and noted the eager smiles 
on Tomkins’s face at the amateur’s slightest joke, the sickly twinkle 
of hope in his eyes as the amateur stopped before his own picture. 
I have been ushered by Chipstone’s black servant through hall 
after hall peopled with plaster gods and heroes, into Chipstone’s 
own magnificent studio, where he sat longing vainly for an order, 
and justly dreading his landlord’s call for the rent. And, seeing 
how severely these gentlemen were taxed in their profession, I have 
been grateful for my own more fortunate one, which necessitates 
cringing to no patron ; which calls for no keeping up of appearances ; 
and which requires no stock-in-trade save the workman’s industry, 
his best ability, and a dozen sheets of paper. 

Having to turn with all his might to his new profession, Clive 
Newcome, one of the proudest men alive, chose to revolt and to be 
restive at almost every stage of his training. He had a natural 
genius for his art, and had acquired in his desultory way a very 
considerable skill. His drawing was better than his painting (an 
opinion which, were my friend present, he of course would utterly 
contradict) ; his designs and sketches were far superior to his finished 
compositions. His friends, presuming to judge of this artist’s quali- 
fications, ventured to counsel him accordingly, and were thanked for 
their pains in the usual manner. We had in the first place to bully 
and browbeat Clive most fiercely, before he would take fitting lodg- 
ings for the execution of those designs which we had in view for 
him. “ Why should I take expensive lodgings h ” says Clive, slapping 
his fist on the table. “ I am a pauper, and can scarcely afford to 
live in a garret. Why should you pay me for drawing your portrait 
and Laura’s and the children ? What the deuce does Warrington 
want with the effigy of his grim old mug 1 ? You don’t want them a 
bit — you only want to give me money. It would be much more 


THE NEWCOMES 


749 


honest of me to take the money at once and own that I am a 
beggar ; and I tell you what, Pen, the only money which I feel I 
come honestly by, is that which is paid me by a little printseller in 
Long Acre who buys my drawings, one with another, at fourteen 
shillings apiece, and out of whom I can earn pretty nearly two 
hundred a year. I am doing Mail Coaches for him, sir, and Charges 
of Cavalry ; the public like the Mail Coaches best — on a dark 
paper — the horses and milestones picked out white — yellow dust — 
cobalt distance, and the guard and coachman of course in vermilion. 
That’s what a gentleman can get his bread by. Portraits, pooh ! 
it’s disguised beggary. Crack thorpe, and a half-dozen men of his 
regiment, came, like good fellows as they are, and sent me five 
pounds apiece for their heads, but I tell you I am ashamed to take 
their money.” Such used to be the tenor of Clive Newcome’s 
conversation as he strode up and down our room after dinner, 
pulling his mustachio, and dashing his long yellow hair off his 
gaunt face. 

' When Clive was inducted into the new lodgings at which his 
friends counselled him to hang up his ensign, the dear old Colonel 
accompanied his son, parting with a sincere regret from our little 
ones at home, to whom he became greatly endeared during his visit 
to us, and who always hailed him when he came to see us with 
smiles and caresses and sweet infantile welcome. On that day 
when he went away, Laura went up and kissed him with tears in 
her eyes. “You know how long I have been wanting to do it,” 
this lady said to her husband. Indeed I cannot describe the 
behaviour of the old man during his stay with us, his gentle grati- 
tude, his sweet simplicity and kindness, his thoughtful courtesy. 
There was not a servant in our little household but was eager to 
wait upon him. Laura’s maid was as tender-hearted at his depart- 
ure as her mistress. He was ailing for a short time, when our 
cook performed prodigies of puddings and jellies to suit his palate. 
The youth who held the offices of butler and valet in our establish- 
ment — a lazy and greedy youth whom Martha scolded in vain — 
would jump up and leave his supper to carry a message to our 
Colonel. My heart is full as I remember the kind words which he 
said to me at parting, and as I think that we were the means of 
giving a little comfort to that stricken and gentle soul. 

Whilst the Colonel and his son stayed with us, letters of course 
passed between Clive and his family at Boulogne, but my wife 
remarked that the receipt of those letters appeared to give our 
friend but little pleasure. They were read in a minute, and he 
would toss them over to his father, or thrust them into his pocket 
with a gloomy face. “ Don’t you see,” groans out Clive to me one 


750 


THE NEWCOMES 


evening, “that Rosey scarcely writes the letters, or if she does, 
that her mother is standing over her 1 ? That woman is the Nemesis 
of our life, Pen. How can I pay her off] Great God ! how can I 
pay her off?” And so having spoken, his head fell between his 
hands, and as I watched him I saw a ghastly domestic picture before 
me of helpless pain, humiliating discord, stupid tyranny. 

What, I say again, are the so-called great ills of life compared 
to these small ones ? 

The Colonel accompanied Clive to the lodgings which we had 
found for the young artist, in a quarter not far removed from the 
old house in Fitzroy Square, where some happy years of his youth 
had been spent. When sitters came to Clive — as at first they did 
in some numbers, many of his early friends being anxious to do 
him a service — the old gentleman was extraordinarily cheered and 
comforted. We could see by his face that affairs were going on 
well at the studio. He showed us the rooms which Rosey and 
the boy were to occupy. He prattled to our children and their 
mother, who was never tired of hearing him, about his grandson. 
He filled up the future nursery with a hundred little nicknacks of 
his own contriving ; and with wonderful cheap bargains, which he 
bought in his walks about Tottenham-court Road. He pasted a 
most elaborate book of prints and sketches for Boy. It was 
astonishing what notice Boy already took of pictures. He would 
have all the genius of his father. Would he had had a better 
grandfather than the foolish old man who had ruined all belonging 
to him ! 

However much they like each other, men in the London world 
see their friends but seldom. The place is so vast that even next 
door is distant; the calls of business, society, pleasure, so multi- 
farious that mere friendship can get or give but an occasional shake 
of the hand in the hurried moments of passage. Men must live 
their lives ; and are perforce selfish, but not unfriendly. At a great 
need you know where to look for your friend, and he that he is 
secure of you. So I went very little to Howland Street, where 
Clive now lived : very seldom to Lamb Court, where my dear old 
friend Warrington still sat in his old chambers, though our meetings 
were none the less cordial when they occurred, and our trust in one 
another always the same. Some folks say the world is heartless : 
he who says so either prates commonplaces (the most likely and 
charitable suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is most singular 
and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a reason- 
able mortal cannot have ; our nature, I think, not sufficing for 
that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to 
deplore your death; or whose death would you wish to deplore? 


THE NEWCOMES 


751 


Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear friendships, the mere 
changes and recurrences of grief and mourning would be intolerable, 
and tax our lives beyond their value. In a word, we carry our own 
burden in the world ; push and struggle along on our own affairs ; 
are pinched by our own shoes — though Heaven forbid we should 
not stop and forget ourselves sometimes when a friend cries out in 
his distress, or we can help a poor stricken wanderer in his way. 
As for good women — these, my worthy reader, are different from us 
— the nature of these is to love, and to do kind offices and devise 
untiring charities ; — so, I would have you to know, that though 
Mr. Pendennis was parcus suorum cultor et infrequens, Mrs. Laura 
found plenty of time to go from Westminster to Bloomsbury ; and 
to pay visits to her Colonel and her Clive, both of whom she had 
got to love with all her heart again, now misfortune was on them ; 
and both of whom returned her kindness with an affection blessing 
the bestower and the receiver ; and making the husband proud and 
thankful whose wife had earned such a noble regard. What is the 
dearest praise of all to a man? his own — or that you should love 
those whom he loves? I see Laura Pendennis ever constant and 
tender and pure ; ever ministering in her sacred office of kindness — 
bestowing love and followed by blessings. Which would I have, 
think you : that priceless crown hymeneal, or the glory of a Tenth 
Edition ? 

Clive and his father had found not only a model friend in the 
lady above mentioned, but a perfect prize landlady in their happy 
lodgings. In her house, besides those apartments which Mr. New- 
come had originally engaged, were rooms just sufficient to accommo- 
date his wife, child, and servant, when they should come to him, with 
a very snug little upper chamber for the Colonel, close by Boy’s 
nursery, where he liked best to be. “And if there is not room 
for the Campaigner, as you call her,” says Mrs. Laura, with a 
shrug of her shoulders, “ why, I am very sorry, but Clive must try 
and bear her absence as well as possible. After all, my dear Pen, 
you know he is married to Rosey and not to her mamma ; and so I 
think it will be quite best that they shall have their menage as 
before.” 

The cheapness of the lodgings which the prize landlady let, the 
quantity of neat new furniture which she put in, the consultations 
which she had with my wife regarding these supplies, were quite 
singular to me. “ Have you pawned your diamonds, you reckless 
little person, in order to supply all this upholstery?” “No, sir, 
I have not pawned my diamonds,” Mrs. Laura answers ; and I was 
left to think (if I thought on the matter at all) that the landlady’s 
own benevolence had provided these good things for Clive. For 


752 


THE NEWCOMES 


the wife of Laura’s husband was perforce poor ; and she asked me 
for no more money at this time than at any other. 

At first, in spite of his grumbling, Clive’s affairs looked so 
prosperous, and so many sitters came to him from amongst his 
old friends, that I was half inclined to believe, with the Colonel 
and my wife, that he was a prodigious genius, and that his good 
fortune would go on increasing. Laura was for having Rosey re- 
turn to her husband. Every wife ought to be with her husband. 
J. J. shook his head about the prosperity. “ Let us see whether 
the Academy will have his pictures this year, and what a place 
they will give him,” said Ridley. To do him justice, Clive thought 
far more humbly of his compositions than Ridley did. Not a little 
touching was it to us, who had known the young men in former 
days, to see them in their changed positions. It was Ridley, whose 
genius and industry had put him in the rank of a patron — Ridley, 
the good industrious apprentice, who had won the prize of his art 
— and not one of his many admirers saluted his talent and success 
with such a hearty recognition as Clive, whose generous soul knew 
no envy, and who always fired and kindled at the success of his 
friends. 

When Mr. Clive used to go over to Boulogne from time to time 
to pay his dutiful visits to his wife, the Colonel did not accompany 
his son, but, during the latter’s absence, would dine with Mrs. 
Pendennis. 

Though the preparations were complete in Howland Street, and 
Clive dutifully went over to Boulogne, Mrs. Pendennis remarked that 
he seemed still to hesitate about bringing his wife to London. 

Upon this Mr. Pendennis observed that some gentlemen were 
not particularly anxious about the society of their wives, and that 
this pair were perhaps better apart. Upon which Mrs. Pendennis, 
drubbing on the ground with a little foot, said, “ Nonsense, for 
shame, Arthur ! How can you speak so flippantly ? Did he not 
swear before Heaven to love and cherish her, never to leave her, 
sir ? Is not his duty his duty , sir ? ” (a most emphatic stamp of 
the foot). “ Is she not his for better or for worse ? ” 

“ Including the Campaigner, my dear?” says Mr. P. 

“ Don’t laugh, sir ! She must come to him. There is no room 
in Howland Street for Mrs. Mackenzie.” 

“ You artful scheming creature ! We have some spare rooms. 
Suppose we ask Mrs. Mackenzie to come and live with us, my 
dear ; and we could then have the benefit of the garrison anecdotes 
and mess jocularities of your favourite, Captain Goby ? ” 

“ I could never bear the horrid man ! ” cried Mrs. Pendennis. 
And how can I tell why she disliked him ? 


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753 


Everything being now ready for the reception of Clive’s little 
family, we counselled our friend to go over to Boulogne, and bring 
back his wife and child, and then to make some final stipulation 
with the Campaigner. He saw, as well as we, that the presence 
and tyranny of that fatal woman destroyed his father’s health and 
spirits — that the old man knew no peace or comfort in her neigh- 
bourhood, and was actually hastening to his grave under that 
dreadful and unremitting persecution. Mrs. Mackenzie made Clive 
scarcely less wretched than his father — she governed his household 
—took away his weak wife’s allegiance and affection from him — 
and caused the wretchedness of every single person round about 
her. They ought to live apart. If she was too poor to subsist 
upon her widow’s pension, which, in truth, was but a very small 
pittance, let Clive give up to her, say, the half of his wife’s 
income of £100 a year. His prospects and present means of earn- 
ing money were such that he might afford to do without that 
portion of his income : at any rate, he and his father would be 
cheaply ransomed at that price, from their imprisonment to this 
intolerable person. “ Go, Clive,” said his counsellors, “ and bring 
back your wife and child, and let us all be happy together.” For, 
you see, those advisers opined that if we had written over to 
Mrs. Clive Newcome, “ Come ” — she would have come with the 
Campaigner in her suite. 

Vowing that he would behave like a man of courage — and we 
know that Clive had shown himself to be such in two or three 
previous battles — Clive crossed the water to bring back his little 
Rosey. Our good Colonel agreed to dine at our house during the 
days of his son’s absence. I have said how beloved he was by 
young and old there — and he was kind enough to say afterwards, 
that no woman had made him so happy as Laura. We did not 
tell him — I know not from what reticence — that we had advised 
Clive to offer a bribe of £50 a year to Mrs. Mackenzie ; until 
about a fortnight after Clive’s absence, and a week after his return, 
when news came that poor old Mrs. Mason was dead at Newcome, 
whereupon we informed the Colonel that he had another pensioner 
now in the Campaigner. 

Colonel Newcome was thankful that his dear old friend had 
gone out of the world in comfort and without pain. She had made 
a will long since, leaving all her goods and chattels to Thomas 
Newcome — but having no money to give, the Colonel handed over 
these to the old lady’s faithful attendant, Keziah. 

Although many of the Colonel’s old friends had parted from 
him or quarrelled with him in consequence of the ill success of the 
B. B. C., there were two old ladies who yet remained faithful to 
8 3 b 


754 


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him — Miss Cann, namely, and honest little Miss Honeyman of 
Brighton, who, when she heard of the return to London of her 
nephew and brother-in-law, made a railway journey to the metro- 
polis (being the first time she ever engaged in that kind of travelling), 
rustled into Clive’s apartments in Howland Street in her neatest 
silks, and looking not a day older than on that when we last beheld 
her ; and after briskly scolding the young man for permitting his 
father to enter into money affairs — of which the poor dear Colonel 
was as ignorant as a baby — she gave them both to understand that 
she had a little sum at her bankers at their disposal — and besought 
the Colonel to remember that her house was his, and that she 
should be proud and happy to receive him as soon and as often 
and for as long a time as he would honour her with his company. 
“Is not my house full of your presents ? ” — cried the stout little 
old lady — “ have I not reason to be grateful to all the Newcomes 
— yes, to all the Newcomes, — for Miss Ethel and her family have 
come to me every year for months, and I don’t quarrel with them, 
and I won’t, although you do, sir? Is not this shawl — are not 
these jewels that I wear,” she continued, pointing to those well 
known ornaments, “ my dear Colonel’s gift 1 Did you not relieve 
my brother Charles in this country and procure for him his place in 
India ? Yes, my dear friend — and though you have been imprudent 
in money matters, my obligations towards you, and my gratitude, 
and my affection are always the same.” Thus Miss Honeyman 
spoke, with somewhat of a quivering voice at the end of her little 
oration, but with exceeding state and dignity — for she believed that 
her investment of two hundred pounds in that unlucky B. B. C., 
which failed for half a million, was a sum of considerable importance, 
and gave her a right to express her opinion to the Managers. 

Clive came back from Boulogne in a week, as we have said — 
but he came back without his wife, much to our alarm, and looked 
so exceedingly fierce and glum when we demanded the reason of 
his return without his family, that we saw wars and battles had 
taken place, and thought that in this last continental campaign 
the Campaigner had been too much for her friend. 

The Colonel, to whom Clive communicated, though with us 
the poor lad held his tongue, told my wife what had happened : — 
not all the battles which no doubt raged at breakfast, dinner, supper, 
during the week of Clive’s visit to Boulogne, — but the upshot of 
these engagements. Rosey, not unwilling in her first private talk 
with her husband to come to England with him and the boy, 
showed herself irresolute on the second day at breakfast, when the 
fire was opened on both sides ; cried at dinner when fierce assaults 
took place, in which Clive had the advantage ; slept soundly, but 


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755 


besought him to he very firm, and met the enemy at breakfast 
with a quaking heart; cried all that day, during which, pretty 
well without cease, the engagement lasted ; and when Clive might 
have conquered and brought her off, the weather was windy and 
the sea was rough, and he was pronounced a brute to venture on 
it with a wife in Rosey’s situation. 

Behind that “ situation ” the widow shielded herself. She clung 
to her adored child, and from that bulwark discharged abuse and 
satire at Clive and his father. He could not rout her out of her 
position. Having had the advantage on the first two or three days, 
on the four last he was beaten, and lost ground in each action. 
Rosey found that in her situation she could not part from her 
darling mamma. The Campaigner for her part averred that she 
might be reduced to beggary ; that she might be robbed of her 
last farthing and swindled and cheated ; that she might see her 
daughter’s fortune flung away by unprincipled adventurers, and 
her blessed child left without even the comforts of life ; but desert 
her in such a situation, she never would — no, never ! Was not dear 
Rosey’s health already impaired by the various shocks which she had 
undergone ? Did she not require every comfort, every attendance ? 
Monster ! ask the doctor ! She would stay with her darling child 
in spite of insult and rudeness and vulgarity. (Rosey’s father was 
a King’s officer, not a Company’s officer, thank God !) She would 
stay as long at least as Rosey’s situation continued, at Boulogne, 
if not in London, but with her child. They might refuse to send 
her money, having robbed her of all her own, but she would pawn 
her gown off her N back for her child. Whimpers from Rosey — 
cries of “Mamma, mamma, compose yourself,” — convulsive sobs — 
clenched knuckles — flashing eyes — embraces rapidly clutched — laughs 
— stamps — snorts — from the dishevelled Campaigner; grinding teeth 
— livid fury and repeated breakages of the third commandment 
by Clive — I can fancy the whole scene. He returned to London 
without his wife, and when she came she brought Mrs. Mackenzie 
with her. 


CHAPTER LXXV 


FOUNDER'S DAY AT GREY FRIARS 
OSEY came, bringing discord and wretchedness with her, to 



her husband, and the sentence of death or exile to his dear 


* ^ old father, all of which we foresaw — all of which Clive’s 
friends would have longed to prevent — all of which were inevitable 
under the circumstances. Clive’s domestic affairs were often talked 
over by our little set. Warrington and F. B. knew of his unhappi- 
ness. We three had strongly opined that the women being together 
at Boulogne, should stay there and live there, Clive sending them 
over pecuniary aid as his means permitted. “ They must hate each 
other pretty well by this time,” growls George Warrington. “ Why 
on earth should they not part?” “What a woman that Mrs. 
Mackenzie is ! ” cries F. B. “ What an infernal tartar and cata- 
maran ! She who was so uncommonly smiling and soft-spoken, and 
such a fine woman, by jingo ! What puzzles all women are ! ” F. B. 
sighed, and drowned further reflection in beer. 

On the other side, and most strongly advocating Rosey’s return 
to Clive, was Mrs. Laura Pendennis : with certain arguments for 
which she had chapter and verse, and against which we of the 
separatist party had no appeal. “Did he marry her only for the 
days of her prosperity?” asked Laura. “Is it right, is it manly, 
that he should leave her now she is unhappy — poor little creature 
—no woman had ever more need of protection ; and who should be 
her natural guardian save her husband ? Surely, Arthur, you forget 
— have you forgotten them yourself, sir? — the solemn vows which 
Clive made at the altar. Is he not bound to his wife to keep only 
unto her so long as they both shall live, to love her, comfort her, 
honour her, and keep her in sickness and health ? ” 

“To keep her, yes— but not to keep the Campaigner,” cries 
Mr. Pendennis. “It is a moral bigamy, Laura, which you 
advocate, you wicked, immoral young woman ! ” 

But Laura, though she smiled at this notion, would not be 
put off from her first proposition. Turning to Clive, who was 
with us, talking over his doleful family circumstances, she took 
his hand and pleaded the cause of right and religion with sweet 


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757 


artless fervour. She agreed with us that it was a hard lot for 
Clive to bear. So much the nobler the task, and the fulfilment 
of duty in enduring it. A few months too would put an end to 
his trials. When his child was born Mrs. Mackenzie would take 
her departure. It would even be Clive’s duty to separate from 
her then, as it now was to humour his wife in her delicate con- 
dition, and to soothe the poor soul, who had had a great deal of 
ill-health, of misfortune, and of domestic calamity to wear and 
shatter her. Clive acquiesced with a groan, but with a touching 
and generous resignation as we both thought. “She is right, 
Pen,” he said. “ I think your wife is always right. I will try, 
Laura, and bear my part, God help me ! I will do my duty and 
strive my best to soothe and gratify my poor dear little woman. 
They will be making caps and things, and will not interrupt me 
in my studio. Of nights I can go to Clipstone Street and work 
at the Life. There’s nothing like the Life, Pen. So you see I 
shan’t be much at home except at meal-times, when by nature I 
shall have my mouth full, and no opportunity of quarrelling with 
poor Mrs. Mack.” So he went home, followed and cheered by 
the love and pity of my dear wife, and determined stoutly to bear 
this heavy yoke which fate had put on him. 

To do Mrs. Mackenzie justice, that lady backed up with all 
her might the statement which my wife had put forward with a 
view of soothing poor Clive, viz., that the residence of his mother- 
in-law in his house was only to be temporary “ Temporary ! ” 
cries Mrs. Mack (who was kind enough to make a call on Mrs. 
Pendennis, and trea^ that lady to a piece of her mind). “ Do you 
suppose, madam, that it could be otherwise ? Do you suppose that 
worlds would induce me to stay in a house where I have received 
such treatment — where, after I and my daughter had been robbed 
of every shilling of our fortune, we are daily insulted by Colonel 
Newcome and his son? Do you suppose, ma’am, that I do not 
know that Clive’s friends hate me, and give themselves airs and 
look down upon my darling child, and try and make differences 
between my sweet Rosey and me — Rosey who might have been 
dead, or might have been starving, but that her dear mother came 
to her rescue? No, I would never stay. I loathe every day that 
I remain in the house — I would rather beg my bread — I would 
rather sweep the streets and starve — though, thank God, I have 
my pension as the widow of an officer in her Majesty’s Service, 
and I can live upon that — and of that Colonel Newcome cannot 
rob me ; and when my darling love needs a mother’s care no 
longer, I will leave her. I will shake the dust off my feet and 
leave that house, I will. — And Mr. Newcome’s friends may then 


758 


THE NEWCOMES 


sneer at me and abuse me, and blacken my darling child’s heart 
towards me if they choose. And I thank you, Mrs. Pendennis, 
for all your kindness towards my daughter’s family, and for the 
furniture which you have sent into the house, and for the trouble 
you have taken about our family arrangements. It was for this 
I took the liberty of calling upon you, and I wish you a very 
good morning.” So speaking, the Campaigner left my wife ; and 
Mrs. Pendennis enacted the pleasing scene with great spirit to 
her husband afterwards, concluding the whole with a splendid 
curtsey and toss of the head, such as Mrs. Mackenzie performed 
as her parting salute. 

Our dear Colonel had fled before her. He had acquiesced 
humbly in the decree of fate ; and, lonely, old, and beaten, marched 
honestly on the path of duty. It was a great blessing, he wrote 
to us, to him to think that in happier days and during many years 
he had been enabled to benefit his kind and excellent relative 
Miss Honeyman. He could thankfully receive her hospitality 
now, and claim the kindness and shelter which this old friend 
gave him. No one could be more anxious to make him comfort- 
able. The air of Brighton did him the greatest good; he had 
found some old friends, some old Bengalees there, with whom he 
enjoyed himself greatly, &c. How much did we, who knew his 
noble spirit, believe of this story 1 ? To us Heaven had awarded 
health, happiness, competence, loving children, united hearts, and 
modest prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life shone 
with benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honour, 
fate decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. 
We bowed our heads, humiliated at the contrast of his lot and 
ours ; and prayed Heaven to enable us to bear our present good 
fortune meekly, and our evil days, if they should come, with such 
a resignation as this good Christian showed. 

I forgot to say that our attempts to better Thomas Newcome’s 
money affairs were quite in vain, the Colonel insisting upon paying 
over every shilling of his military allowances and retiring pension 
to the parties from \Vhorn he had borrowed money previous to his 
bankruptcy. “ Ah, what a good man that is ! ” says Mr. Sherrick, 
with tears in his eyes, “ what a noble fellow, sir ! He would die 
rather than not pay every farthing over. He’d starve, sir, that he 
would. The money ain’t mine, sir, or, if it was, do you think I’d 
take it from the poor old boy? No, sir; by Jove I honour and 
reverence him more now he ain’t got a shilling in his pocket, than 
ever I did when we thought he was a-rolling in money.” 

My wife made one or two efforts at Samaritan visits in Howland 
Street, but was received by Mrs. Clive with such a faint welcome, 


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759 

and by the Campaigner with so grim a countenance, so many sneers, 
innuendoes, insults almost, that Laura’s charity was beaten back, 
and she ceased to press good offices thus thanklessly received. If 
Clive came to visit us, as he very rarely did, after an official 
question or two regarding the health of his wife and child, no 
further mention was made of his family affairs. His painting, he 
said, was getting on tolerably well ; he had work, scantily paid it 
is true, but work sufficient. He was reserved, uncommunicative, 
unlike the frank Clive of former times, and oppressed by his 
circumstances, as it was easy to see. I did not press the confidence 
which he was unwilling to offer, and thought best to respect his 
silence. I had a thousand affairs of my own : who has not in 
London 1 ? If you die to-morrow, your dearest friend will feel for 
you a hearty pang of sorrow, and go to his business as usual. I 
could divine, but would not care to describe, the life which my poor 
Clive was now leading; the vulgar misery, the sordid home, the 
cheerless toil, and lack of friendly companionship which darkened 
his kind soul. I was glad Clive’s father was away. The Colonel 
wrote to us twice or thrice : could it be three months ago ? bless me, 
how time flies ! He was happy, he wrote, with Miss Honeyman, 
who took the best care of him. 

Mention has been made once or twice in the course of this 
history of the Grey Friars school, — where the Colonel and Clive 
and I had been brought up, — an ancient foundation of the time 
of James I., still subsisting in the heart of London city. The 
death-day of the founder of the place is still kept solemnly by 
Cistercians. In their chapel, where assemble the boys of the school, 
and the fourscore old men of the Hospital, the founder’s tomb 
stands, a huge edifice, emblazoned with heraldic decorations and 
clumsy carved allegories. There is an old Hall, a beautiful 
specimen of the architecture of James’s time — an old Hall 1 many 
old halls : old staircases, old passages, old chambers decorated with 
old portraits, walking in the midst of which we walk, as it were, in 
the early seventeenth century. To others than Cistercians, Grey 
Friars is a dreary place possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils educated 
there love to revisit it ; and the oldest of us grow young again for 
an hour or two as we come back into those scenes of childhood. 

The custom of the school is, that on the 12th of December, the 
Founder’s Day, the head gown-boy shall recite a Latin oration, in 
praise Fundatoris Nostril and upon other subjects ; and a goodly 
company of old Cistercians is generally brought together to attend 
this oration : after which we go to chapel and hear a sermon, after 
which we adjourn to a great dinner, where old condisciples meet, 


760 


THE NEWCOMES 


old toasts are given, and speeches are made- Before marching from 
the oration-hall to chapel, the stewards of the day’s dinner, accord- 
ing to old-fashioned rite, have wands put into their hands, walk to 
church at the head of the procession, and sit there in places of 
honour. The boys are already in their seats, with smug fresh 
faces, and shining white collars; the old black-gowned pensioners 
are on their benches, the chapel is lighted, and Founder’s Tomb, 
with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and shines 
with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies, 
Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examina- 
tion Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again as 
we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are 
altered since we were here, and how the doctor — not the present 
doctor, the doctor of our time— used to sit yonder, and his awful 
eye used to frighten us shuddering boys, on whom it lighted; and 
how the boy next us would kick our shins during service time, and 
how the monitor would cane us afterwards because our shms were 
kicked. Yonder sit forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking about 
home and holidays to-morrow. Yonder sit some threescore old 
gentlemen pensioners of the Hospital, listening to the prayers and 
the psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in the twilight, — the 
old reverend blackgowns. Is Codd Ajax alive 1 ? you wonder — the 
Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen Codds, I know not 
wherefore — I know not wherefore — but is old Codd Ajax alive I 
wonder 1 or Codd Soldier ? or kind old Codd Gentleman, or has the 
grave closed over them ‘l A plenty of candles lights up this chapel, 
and this scene of age and youth, and early memories, and pompous 
death. How solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered 
again in the place where in childhood we used to hear them ! How 
beautiful and decorous the rite ; how noble the ancient words of the 
supplications which the priest utters, and to which generations of 
fresh children and troops of bygone seniors have cried Amen under 
those arches ! The service for Founder’s Day is a special one ; one 
of the psalms selected being the thirty-seventh, and we hear — 

23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he 
delighteth in his way. 

24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the 
Lord upholdeth him with his hand. 

25. I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen 
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. 

As we came to this verse, I chanced to look up from my book 
towards the swarm of black-coated pensioners; and amongst them 
— amongst them — sat Thomas Newcome. 


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76 l 

His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book ; there 
was no mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners 
of the Hospital of Grey Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his 
breast. He stood there amongst the Poor Brethren, uttering the 
responses to the psalm. The steps of this good man had been 
ordered hither by Heaven’s decree : to this almshouse ! Here it 
was ordained that a life all love, and kindness, and honour should 
end ! I heard no more of prayers, and psalms, and sermon, after 
that. How dared I to be in a place of mark, and he, he yonder 
among the poor ? Oh, pardon, you noble soul ! I ask forgiveness 
of you for being of a world that has so treated you — you my better, 
you the honest, and gentle, and good ! I thought the service would 
never end, or the organist’s voluntaries, or the preacher’s homily. 

The organ played us out of chapel at length, and I waited in 
the ante-chapel until the pensioners took their turn to quit it. 
My dear dear old friend ! I ran to him with a warmtli and 
eagerness of recognition which no doubt showed themselves in my 
face and accents as my heart was moved at the sight of him. His 
own wan face flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook in 
mine. “ I have found a home, Arthur,” said he. “ Don’t you 
remember, before I went to India, when we came to see the old 
Grey Friars, and visited Captain Scarsdale in his room 1 ? — a Poor 
Brother like me — an old Peninsular man. Scarsdale is gone now, 
sir, and is where £ the wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
are at rest ’ ; and I thought then, when we saw him — here would 
be a place for an old fellow when his career was over, to hang his 
sword up ; to humble his soul, and to wait thankfully for the end, 
Arthur. My good friend Lord H., who is a Cistercian like our- 
selves, and has just been appointed a governor, gave me his first 
nomination. Don’t be agitated, Arthur my boy, I am very happy. 
I have good quarters, good food, good light and fire, and good 
friends; blessed be God! my dear kind young friend — my boy’s 
friend ; you have always been so, sir ; and I take it uncommonly 
kind of you, and I thank God for you, sir. Why, sir, I am as 
happy as the day is long.” He uttered words to this effect as we 
walked through the courts of the building towards his room, which 
in truth I found neat and comfortable, with a brisk fire crackling 
on the hearth ; a little tea-table laid out, a Bible and spectacles by 
the side of it, and over the mantelpiece a drawing of his grandson 
by Clive. 

“You may come and see me here, sir, whenever you like, and 
so may your dear wife and little ones, tell Laura, with my love ; — 
but you must not stay now. You must go back to your dinner.” 
In vain I pleaded that I had no stomach for it. He gave me a 


7 62 


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look, which seemed to say he desired to be alone, and I had to 
respect that order and leave him. 

Of course I came to him on the very next day ; though not 
with my wife and children, who were in truth absent in the country 
at Rosebury, where they were to pass the Christmas holidays ; and 
where, this school-dinner over, I was to join them. On my second 
visit to Grey Friars my good friend entered more at length into 
the reasons why he had assumed the Poor Brother’s gown ; and I 
cannot say but that I acquiesced in his reasons, and admired that 
noble humility and contentedness of which he gave me an example. 

“That which had caused him most grief and pain,” he said, 
“ in the issue of that unfortunate bank, was the thought that poor 
friends of his had been induced by his representations to invest 
their little capital in that speculation. Good Miss Honeyman, for 
instance, meaning no harm, and in all respects a most honest and 
kindly-disposed old lady, has nevertheless alluded more than once 
to the fact that her money had been thrown away ; and these 
allusions, sir, made her hospitality somewhat hard to bear,” said 
the Colonel. “At home — at poor Clivy’s, I mean — it was even 
worse,” he continued. “Mrs. Mackenzie for months past, by her 
complaints, and — and her conduct, has made my son and me so 
miserable — that flight before her, and into any refuge, was the 
best course. She, too, does not mean ill, Pen. Do not waste any 
of your oaths upon that poor woman,” he added, holding up his 
finger, and smiling sadly. “ She thinks I deceived her, though 
Heaven knows it was myself I deceived. She has great influence 
over Rosey. Very few persons can resist that violent and head- 
strong woman, sir. I could not bear her reproaches, or my poor 
sick daughter’s, whom her mother leads almost entirely now, and 
it was with all this grief on my mind that, as I was walking one 
day upon Brighton cliff, I met my schoolfellow, my Lord H. — who 
has ever been a good friend of mine — and who told me how he 
had just been appointed a governor of Grey Friars. He asked me 
to dine with him on the next day, and would take no refusal. He 
knew of my pecuniary misfortunes, of course — and showed himself 
most noble and liberal in his offers of help. I was very much 
touched by his goodness, Pen, — and made a clean breast of it to 
his Lordship ; who at first would not hear of my coming to this 
place — and offered me out of the purse of an old brother school- 
fellow and an old brother soldier as much — as much as should last 
me my time. Wasn’t it noble of him, Arthur 1 God bless him ! 
There are good men in the world, sir, there are true friends, as I 
have found in these later days. Do you know, sir,” — here the 
old man’s eyes twinkled, — “ that Fred Bayham fixed up that book- 


THE NEWCOMES 763 

case yonder — and brought me my little boy’s picture to hang up 1 
Boy and Clive will come and see me soon.” 

“ Do you mean they do not come ? ” I cried. 

“They don’t know I am here, sir,” said the Colonel, with a 
sweet, kind smile. “ They think I am visiting his Lordship in 
Scotland. Ah, they are good people ! When we had had our 
talk downstairs over our bottle of claret — where my old commander- 
in-chief would not hear of my plan — we went upstairs to her Lady- 
ship, who saw that her husband was disturbed, and asked the 
reason. I dare say it was the good claret that made me speak, 
sir ; for I told her that I and her husband had had a dispute, and 
that I would take her Ladyship for umpire. And then I told her 
the story over, that I had paid away every rupee to the creditors, 
and mortgaged my pensions and retiring allowances for the same 
end, that I was a burden upon Clivy, who had work enough, poor 
boy, to keep his own family and his wife’s mother, whom my 
imprudence had impoverished, — that here was an honourable 
asylum which my friend could procure for me, and was not that 
better than to drain his purse"? She was very much moved, sir 
— she is a very kind lady, though she passed for being very proud 
and haughty in India — so wrongly are people judged. And Lord 
H. said, in his rough way, ‘ that, by Jove, if Tom Newcome took 
a thing into his obstinate old head no one could drive it out.’ And 
so,” said the Colonel, with his sad smile, “I had my own way. 
Lady H. was good enough to come and see me the very next day — 
and do you know, Pen, she invited me to go and live with them 
for the rest of my life — made me the most generous, the most 
delicate offers ? But I knew I was right, and held my own. I 
am too old to work, Arthur : and better here, whilst I am to stay, 
than elsewhere. Look ! all this furniture came from H. House — 
and that wardrobe is full of linen, which she sent me. She has 
been twice to see me, and every officer in this Hospital is as 
courteous to me as if I had my fine house.” 

I thought of the psalm we had heard on the previous evening, 
and turned to it in the opened Bible, and pointed to the verse, 
“ Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord 
upholdeth him.” Thomas Newcome seeing my occupation, laid a 
kind, trembling hand on my shoulder; and then, putting on his 
glasses, with a smile bent over the volume. And who that saw 
him then, and knew him and loved him as I did — who would not 
have humbled his own heart, and breathed his inward prayer, con- 
fessing and adoring the Divine Will, which ordains these trials, these 
triumphs, these humiliations, these blessed griefs, this crowning 
Love ? 


764 


THE NEWCOMES 


I had the happiness of bringing Clive and his little boy to Thomas 
Newcome that evening; and heard the child’s cry of recognition 
and surprise, and the old man calling the boy’s name, as I closed 
the door upon that meeting ; and by the night’s mail I went down 
to Newcome, to the friends with whom my own family were already 
staying. 

Of course, my conscience-keeper at Rosebury was anxious to 
know about the school-dinner, and all the speeches made, and the 
guests assembled there ; but she soon ceased to inquire about these 
when I came to give her the news of the discovery of our dear old 
friend in the habit of a Poor Brother of Grey Friars. She was very 
glad to hear that Clive and his little son had been reunited to the 
Colonel ; and appeared to imagine at first, that there was some 
wonderful merit upon my part in bringing the three together. 

“ Well — no great merit, Pen, as you will put it,” says the Con- 
fessor ; “ but it was kindly thought, sir — and I like my husband 
when he is kind best; and don’t wonder at your having made a 
stupid speech at the dinner, as you say you did, when you had this 
other subject to think of. That is a beautiful psalm, Pen, and 
those verses which you were reading when you saw him especially 
beautiful.” 

“ But in the presence of eighty old gentlemen, who have all come 
to decay, and have all had to beg their • bread in a manner, don’t 
you think the clergyman might choose some other psalm ? ” asks 
Mr. Pendennis. 

They were not forsaken utterly, Arthur,” says Mrs. Laura 
gravely : but rather declines to argue the point raised by me ; 
namely, that the selection of that especial thirty-seventh psalm was 
not complimentary to those decayed old gentlemen. 

“ All the psalms are good, sir,” she says, “ and this one, of 
course, is included,” and thus the discussion closed. 

I then fell to a description of Howland Street, and poor Clive, 
whom I had found there over his work. A dubious maid scanned 
my appearance rather eagerly when I asked to see him. I found 
a picture-dealer chaffering with him over a bundle of sketches, and 
his little boy, already pencil in hand, lying in one corner of the 
room, the sun playing about his yellow hair. The child looked 
languid and pale, the father worn and ill. When the dealer at 
length took his bargains away, I gradually broke my errand to 
Clive, and told him from whence I had just come. 

He had thought his father in Scotland with Lord H. ; and was 
immensely moved with the news which I brought. 

“I haven’t written to him for a month. It’s not pleasant 


THE NEWCOMES 


7 65 


letters I have to write, Pen, and I can’t make them pleasant. 
Up, Tommykin, and put on your cap,” Tommykin jumps up. 
“ Put on your cap, and tell them to take off your pinafore, and 
tell grandmamma ” 

At that name Tommykin begins to cry. 

“ Look at that ! ” says Clive, commencing to speak in the 
French language, which the child interrupts by calling out in that 
tongue, “ I speak also French, papa.” 

“ Well, my child ! You will like to come out with papa, and 
Betsy can dress you.” He flings off his own paint-stained shooting- 
jacket as he talks, takes a frock-coat out of a carved wardrobe, and 
a hat from a helmet on the shelf. He is no longer the handsome 
splendid boy of old times. Can that be Clive, with that haggard 
face and slouched handkerchief? “I am not the dandy I was, 
Pen,” he says bitterly. 

A little voice is heard crying overhead — and giving a kind of 
gasp, the wretched father stops in some indifferent speech he was 
trying to make. “ I can’t help myself,” he groans out ; “ my poor 
wife is so ill, she can’t attend to the child. Mrs. Mackenzie 
manages the house for me — and — here ! Tommy, Tommy ! papa’s 
coming ! ” Tommy has been crying again, and flinging open the 
studio door, Clive calls out, and dashes upstairs. 

I hear scuffling, stamping, loud voices, poor Tommy’s scared 
little pipe — Clive’s fierce objurgations, and the Campaigner’s voice 
barking out — “ Do, sir, do ! with my child suffering in the next 
room. Behave like a brute to me, do. He shall not go out. 
He shall not have the hat ” — “ He shall ” — “ Ah — ah ! ” A scream 
is heard. It is Clive tearing a child’s hat out of the Campaigner’s 
hands, with which, and a flushed face, he presently rushes down- 
stairs, bearing little Tommy on his shoulder. 

“ You see what I have come to, Pen,” he says with a heart- 
broken voice, trying, with hands all of a tremble, to tie the hat 
on the boy’s head. He laughs bitterly at the ill success of his 
endeavours. “ Oh, you silly papa ! ” laughs Tommy too. 

The door is flung open, and the red-faced Campaigner appears. 
Her face is mottled with wrath, her bandeaux of hair are dis- 
arranged upon her forehead, the ornaments of her cap, cheap, and 
dirty, and numerous, only give her a wilder appearance. She is 
in a large and dingy wrapper, very different from the lady who 
had presented herself a few months back to my wife — how different 
from the smiling Mrs. Mackenzie of old days ! 

“ He shall not go out of a winter day, sir,” she breaks out. “ I 
have his mother’s orders, whom you are killing. Mr. Pen- 
dennis ! ” She starts, perceiving me for the first time, and her 


766 THE NEWCOMES 

breast heaves, and she prepares for combat, and looks at me over 
her shoulder. 

“ You and his father are the best judges upon this point, ma’am,” 
says Mr. Pendennis, with a bow. 

“ The child is delicate, sir,” cries Mrs. Mackenzie ; “ and this 
winter ” 

“ Enough of this,” says Clive with a stamp, and passes through 
her guard with Tommy, and we descend the stairs, and at length 
are in the free street. Was it not best not to describe at full 
length this portion of poor Clive’s history ? 


CHAPTER LXXVI 

CHRISTMAS AT ROSEBURY 

W E have known our friend Florae under two aristocratic 
names, and might now salute him by a third, to which 
he was entitled, although neither he nor his wife ever 
chose to assume it. His father was lately dead, and M. Paul de 
Florae might sign himself Due d’lvry if he chose, but he was 
indifferent as to the matter, and his wife’s friends indignant at 
the idea that their kinswoman, after having been a Princess, should 
descend to the rank of a mere Duchess, So Prince and Princess 
these good folks remained, being exceptions to that order, inasmuch 
as their friends could certainly put their trust in them. 

On his father’s death Florae went to Paris, to settle the affairs 
of the paternal succession ; and, having been for some time absent 
in his native country, returned to Rosebury for the winter, to 
resume that sport of which he was a distinguished amateur. He 
hunted in black during the ensuing season ; and, indeed, henceforth 
laid aside his splendid attire and his allures as a young man. His 
waist expanded, or was no longer confined by the cestus which had 
given it a shape. When he laid aside his black, his whiskers, too, 
went into a sort of half-mourning, and appeared in grey. “I make 
myself old, my friend,” he said pathetically; “I have no more 
neither twenty years nor forty.” He went to Rosebury Church no 
more ; but, with great order and sobriety, drove every Sunday to 

the neighbouring Catholic chapel at C Castle. We had an 

ecclesiastic or two to dine with us at Rosebury, one of whom I am 
inclined to think was Florae’s director. 

A reason, perhaps, for Paul’s altered demeanour was the presence 
of his mother at Rosebury. No politeness or respect could be 
greater than Paul’s towards the Countess. Had she been a sove- 
reign princess, Madame de Florae could not have been treated with 
more profound courtesy than she now received from her son. I 
think the humble-minded lady could have dispensed with some of 
his attentions ; but Paul was a personage who demonstrated all his 
sentiments, and performed his various parts in life with the greatest 
vigour. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what more active rou6 


68 


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than he 1 As a jeune homme, who could be younger, and for a 
longer time 1 As a country gentleman, or an homme d’affaires, he 
insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, 
and an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouff£, or Ferville, 
at the play. I wonder whether, when he is quite old, he will think 
proper to wear a pigtail, like his old father h At any rate, that 
was a good part which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence 
towards his widowed mother, and affectionate respect for her declin- 
ing days. He not only felt these amiable sentiments, but he 
imparted them to his friends freely, as his wont was. He used to 
weep freely, — quite unrestrained by the presence of the domestics, as 
English sentiment would be ; — and when Madame de Florae quitted 
the room after dinner, would squeeze my hand and tell me, with 
streaming eyes, that his mother was an angel. “ Her life has been 
but a long trial, my friend,” he would say. “ Shall not I, who 
have caused her to shed so many tears, endeavour to dry some ? ” 
Of course, all the friends who liked him best encouraged him in an 
intention so pious. 

The reader has already been made acquainted with this lady by 
letters of hers, which came into my possession some time after the 
events which I am at present narrating : my wife, through our 
kind friend Colonel Newcome, had also had the honour of an intro- 
duction to Madame de Florae at Paris ; and, on coming to Rosebury 
for the Christmas holidays, I found Laura and the children greatly 
in favour with the good Countess. She treated her son’s wife with 
a perfect though distant courtesy. She was thankful to Madame 
de Montcontour for the latter’s great goodness to her son. Familiar 
with but very few persons, she could scarcely be intimate with her 
homely daughter-in-law. Madame de Montcontour stood in the 
greatest awe of her ; and, to do that good lady justice, admired and 
reverenced Paul’s mother with all her simple heart. In truth, I 
think almost every one had a certain awe of Madame de Florae, 
except children, who came to her trustingly, and, as it were, by 
instinct. The habitual melancholy of her eyes vanished as they 
lighted upon young faces and infantile smiles. A sweet love beamed 
out of her countenance : an angelic smile shone over her face, as she 
bent towards them and caressed them. Her demeanour then, nay, 
her looks and ways at other times ; — a certain gracious sadness, a 
sympathy with all grief, and pity for all pain ; a gentle heart, 
yearning towards all children ; and, for her own especially, feeling a 
love that was almost an anguish ; in the affairs of the common 
world only a dignified acquiescence, as if her place was not in it, 
and her thoughts were in her Home elsewhere; — these qualities, 
which we had seen exemplified in another life, Laura and her 


THE NEWCOMES 


769 

husband watched in Madame de Florae, and we loved her because 
she was like our mother, i see in such women — the good and 
pure, the patient and faithful, the tried and meek — the followers of 
Him whose earthly life was divinely sad and tender. 

But, good as she was to us and to all, Ethel Newcome was the 
French lady’s greatest favourite. A bond of extreme tenderness 
and affection united these two. The elder friend made constant 
visits to the younger at Newcome ; and when Miss Newcome, as 
she frequently did, came to Rosebury, we used to see that they 
preferred to be alone, divining and respecting the sympathy which 
brought those two faithful hearts together. I can imagine now 
the two tall forms slowly pacing the garden walks, or turning, as 
they lighted on the young ones in their play. What was their 
talk? I never asked it. Perhaps Ethel never said what was in 
her heart, though, be sure, the other knew it. Though the grief 
of those they love is untold, women hear it ; as they soothe it with 
unspoken consolations. To see the elder lady embrace her friend 
as they parted was something holy — a sort of saint-like salutation. 

Consulting the person from whom I had no secrets, w T e had 
thought best at first not to mention to our friends the place and 
position in which we had found our dear Colonel ; at least to wait 
for a fitting opportunity on which we might break the news to 
those who held him in such affection. I told how Clive was hard 
at work, and hoped the best for him. Good-natured Madame de 
Montcontour was easily satisfied with my replies to her questions 
concerning our friend. Ethel only asked if he and her uncle were 
well, and once or twice made inquiries respecting Rosey and her 
child. And now it w T as that my wife told me, what I need no 
longer keep secret, of Ethel’s extreme anxiety to serve her distressed 
relatives, and how she, Laura, had already acted as Miss Newcome’s 
almoner in furnishing and hiring those apartments which Ethel 
believed were occupied by Clive and his father, and wife and child. 
And my wife further informed me with what deep grief Ethel had 
heard of her uncle’s misfortune, and how, but that she feared to 
offend his pride, she longed to give him assistance. She had even 
ventured to offer to send him pecuniary help ; but the Colonel (who 
never mentioned the circumstance to me or any other of his friends), 
in a kind but very cold letter, had declined to be beholden to his 
niece for help. 

So I may have remained some days at Rosebury, and the real 
position of the two Newcomes w T as unknown to our friends there. 
Christmas Eve was come, and, according to a long-standing promise, 
Ethel Newcome and her two children had arrived from the Park, 
8 3 c 


770 


THE NEWCOMES 


which dreary mansion, since his double defeat, Sir Barnes scarcely 
ever visited. Christmas was come, and Rosebury Hall was deco- 
rated with holly. Florae did his best to welcome his friends, 
and strove to make the meeting gay, though in truth it was rather 
melancholy. The children, however, were happy : they had plea- 
sure enough, in the school festival, in the distribution of cloaks and 
blankets to the poor, and in Madame de Montcontour’s gardens, 
delightful and beautiful though winter was there. 

It was only a family meeting, Madame de Florae’s widowhood 
not permitting her presence in large companies. Paul sat at his 
table between his mother and Mrs. Pendennis; Mr. Pendennis 
opposite to him with Ethel and Madame de Montcontour on each 
side. The four children were placed between these personages, on 
whom Madame de Florae looked with her tender glances, and to 
whose little wants the kindest of hosts ministered with uncommon 
good-nature and affection. He was very soft-hearted about children. 

“ Pourquoi n’en avons-nous pas, Jeanne ? H 6 ! pourquoi n’en avons- 
nous pas?” he said, addressing his wife by her Christian name. 
The poor little lady looked kindly at her husband, and then gave 
a sigh, and turned and heaped cake upon the plate of the child 
next to her. No mamma or Aunt Ethel could interpose. It was 
a very light wholesome cake. Brown made it on purpose for the - 
children, “ the little darlings ! ” cries the Princess. 

The children were very happy at being allowed to sit up so late 
to dinner, at all the kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and 
mistletoe clustering round the lamps — the mistletoe, under which 
the gallant Florae, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would 
have his privilege. But the mistletoe was clustered round the lamp, 
the lamp was over the centre of the great round table — the innocent 
gratification which he proposed to himself was denied to M. Paul. 

In the greatest excitement and good-humour, our host at the 
dessert made us des speech. He carried a toast to the charming 
Ethel, another to the charming Mistress Laura, another to his 
good fren’, his brave frren’, his ’appy fren’, Pendennis — ’appy as 
possessor of such a wife, ’appy as writer of works destined to the 
immortality, &c. &c. The little children round about clapped their 
happy little hands, and laughed and crowed in chorus. And now 
the nursery and its guardians were about to retreat, when Florae 
said he had yet a speech, yet a toast — and he bade the butler pour 
wine into every one’s glass — yet a toast — and he carried it to the 
health of our dear friends, of Clive and his father, — the good, the 
brave Colonel! “We who are happy,” says he, “shall we not 
think of those who are good? We who love each other, shall we 
not remember those whom we all love?” He spoke with very 


THE NEWCOMES 


771 


great tenderness and feeling. “ Ma bonne m&re, thou too shalt 
drink this toast ! ” he said, taking his mother’s hand, and kissing it. 
She returned his caress gently, and tasted the wine with her pale 
lips. Ethel’s head bent in silence over her glass ; and as for Laura, 
need I say w T hat happened to her 1 ? When the ladies went away 
my heart was opened to my friend Florae, and I told him where 
and how I had left my dear Clive’s father. 

The Frenchman’s emotion on hearing this tale was such that I 
have loved him ever since. Clive in want ! Why had he not sent 
to his friend 1 Grands Dieux ! Clive who had helped him in his 
greatest distress. Clive’s father, ce preux chevalier , ce parfait 
gentilhomme ! In a hundred rapid exclamations Florae exhibited his 
sympathy, asking of Fate, why such men as he and I were sitting 
surrounded by splendours — before golden vases — crowned with flowers 
— with valets to kiss our feet — (these were merely figures of speech 
in which Paul expressed his prosperity) — whilst our friend the Colonel, 
so much better than we, spent his last days in poverty, and alone. 

I liked my host none the less, I own, because that one of the 
conditions of the Colonel’s present life, which appeared the hardest 
to most people, affected Florae but little. To be a pensioner of an 
Ancient Institution 1 Why not ? Might not any officer retire with- 
out shame to the Invalides at the close of his campaigns, and had 
not Fortune conqueredx our old friend, and age and disaster overcome 
him? It never once entered Thomas Newcome’s head, nor Clive’s, 
nor Florae’s, nor his mother’s, that the Colonel demeaned himself at 
all by accepting that bounty ; and I recollect Warrington sharing 
our sentiment and trolling out those noble lines of the old poet : — 

“ His golden locks Time hath to silver turned ; 

0 Time too swift, 0 swiftness never ceasing ! 

His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurned, 

But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by increasing. 

Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. 

Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. 

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, 

And lovers’ songs be turned to holy psalms ; 

A man at arms must now serve on his knees, 

And feed on prayers, which are old age’s alms.” 

We, I say, respected our friend, whatever was the coat he 
wore; whereas, among the Colonel’s own kinsfolk, dire was the 
dismay, and indignation even, which they expressed when they 
came to hear of this which they were pleased to call degradation to 
their family. Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in subsequent confidential 
communication with the writer of these memoirs, improved the 


772 


THE NEWCOMES 


occasion religiously as her wont was ; referred the matter to Heaven 
too, and thought fit to assume that the celestial powers had decreed 
this humiliation, this dreadful trial for the Newcome family, as a 
warning to them all that they should not be too much puffed up 
with prosperity, nor set their affections too much upon things of 
this earth. Had they not already received one chastisement in 
Barnes’s punishment, and Lady Clara’s awful falling away ? They had 
taught her a lesson, which the Colonel’s lamentable errors had con- 
firmed , — the vanity of trusting in all earthly grandeurs ! Thus it 
was this worthy woman plumed herself, as it were, on her relatives’ 
misfortunes ; and was pleased to think the latter were designed for 
the special warning and advantage of her private family. But Mrs. 
Hobson’s philosophy is only mentioned by the way. Our story, 
which is drawing to its close, has to busy itself with other members 
of the house of The Newcomes. 

My talk with Florae lasted for some time ; at its close, when 
we went to join the ladies in the drawing-room, we found Ethel 
cloaked and shawled, and prepared for her departure with her 
young ones, who were already asleep. The little festival was over, 
and had ended in melancholy, even in weeping. Our hostess sat in 
her accustomed seat by her lamp and her work-table ; but neglect- 
ing her needle, she was having perpetual recourse to her pocket- 
handkerchief, and uttering ejaculations of pity between the intervals 
of her gushes of tears. Madame de Florae was in her usual 
place, her head cast downwards, and her hands folded. My wife 
was at her side, a grave commiseration showing itself in Laura’s 
countenance, whilst I read a yet deeper sadness in Ethel’s pale face. 
Miss Newcome’s carriage had been announced ; the attendants had 
already carried the young ones asleep to the vehicle ; and she was 
in the act of taking leave. We looked round at this disturbed 
party, guessing very likely what the subject of their talk had been, 
to which, however, Miss Ethel did not allude; but, announcing 
that she had intended to depart without disturbing the two gentle- 
men, she bade us farewell and good-night. “ I wish I could say 
merry Christmas,” she added gravely, “ but none of us, I fear, can 
hope for that.” It was evident that Laura had told the last 
chapter of the Colonel’s story. 

Madame de Florae rose up and embraced M iss Newcome : and, 
that farewell over, she sank back on the sofa exhausted, and with 
such an expression of affliction in her countenance that my wife ran 
eagerly towards her. “It is nothing, my dear,” she said, giving a 
cold hand to the younger lady, and sat silent for a few moments, 
during which we heard Florae’s voice without, crying, “ Adieu ! ” 
and the wheels of Miss Newcome’s carriage as it drove away. 


THE NEWCOMES 


773 


Our host entered a moment afterwards ; and remarking, as 
Laura had done, his mother’s pallor and look of anguish, went up 
and spoke to her with the utmost tenderness and anxiety. 

She gave her hand to her son, and a faint blush rose up out of 
the past as it were, and trembled upon her wan cheek. “ He was 
the first friend I ever had in the world, Paul,” she said ; “ the first 
and the best. He shall not want, shall he, my son ? ” 

No signs of that emotion in which her daughter-in-law had been 
indulging were as yet visible in Madame de Florae’s eyes ; but, as 
she spoke, holding her son’s hand in hers, the tears at length over- 
flowed ; and, with a sob, her head fell forwards. The impetuous 
Frenchman flung himself on his knees before his mother, uttered a 
hundred words of love and respect for her, and with tears and sobs 
of his own called God to witness that their friend should never want. 
And so this mother and son embraced each other, and clung 
together in a sacred union of love ; before which we who had been 
admitted as spectators of that scene, stood hushed and respectful. 

That night Laura told me how, when the ladies left us, their 
talk had been entirely about the Colonel and Clive. Madame de 
Florae had spoken especially, and much more freely than was her 
wont. She had told many reminiscences of Thomas Newcome and 
his early days ; how her father taught him mathematics when they 
were quite poor, and living in their dear little cottage at Blackheath ; 
how handsome he was then, with bright eyes, and long black hair 
flowing over his shoulders; how military glory was his boyish 
passion, and he was for ever talking of India, and the famous deeds 
of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book was a history of India 
— the “ History ” of Orme. “ He read it, and I read it also, my 
daughter,” the French lady said, turning to Ethel ; “ ah ! I may say 
so after so many years.” 

Ethel remembered the book as belonging to her grandmother, 
and now in the library at Newcome. Doubtless the same sympathy 
which caused me to speak about Thomas Newcome that evening, 
impelled my wife likewise. She told her friends, as I had told 
Florae, all the Colonel’s story ; and it was while these good women 
were under the impression of the melancholy history, that Florae 
and his guest found them. 

Retired to our rooms, Laura and I talked on the same subject 
until the clock tolled Christmas, and the neighbouring church bells 
rang out a jubilation. And, looking out into the quiet night, where 
the stars were keenly shining, we committed ourselves to rest with 
humbled hearts ; praying, for all those we loved, a blessing of peace 
and good-will. 


CHAPTER LXXVII 


THE SHORTEST AND HAPPIEST IN THE WHOLE HISTORY 
N the ensuing Christmas morning I chanced to rise betimes, 



and entering my dressing-room, opened the windows, and 


>s — ^ looked out on the soft landscape, over which mists were still 
lying ; whilst the serene sky above, and the lawns and leafless woods 
in the foreground near, were still pink with sunrise. The grey had 
not even left the west yet, and I could see a star or two twinkling 
there, to vanish with that twilight. 

As I looked out, I saw the not very distant lodge-gate open after 
a brief parley, and a lady on horseback, followed by a servant, rode 
rapidly up to the house. 

This early visitor was no other than Miss Ethel Newcome. The 
young lady espied me immediately. “ Come down ; come down to 
me this moment, Mr. Pendennis ! ” she cried out. I hastened down 
to her, supposing rightly that news of importance had brought her 
to Rosebury so early. 

The news was of importance indeed. “ Look here ! ” she 
said, “ read this ; ” and she took a paper from the pocket of 
her habit. “When I went home last night, after Madame de 
Florae had been talking to us about Orme’s ‘India,’ I took the 
volumes from the bookcase, and found this paper. It is in 
my grandmother’s — Mrs. Newcome’s — handwriting; I know it 
quite well ; it is dated on the very day of her death. She had 
been writing and reading in her study on that very night; I 
have often heard papa speak of the circumstance. Look and 
read. You are a lawyer, Mr. Pendennis; tell me about this 
paper.” 

I seized it eagerly, and cast my eyes over it ; but having read 
it, my countenance fell. 

“My dear Miss Newcome, it is not worth a penny,” I was 
obliged to own. 

“Yes it is, sir, to honest people ! ” she cried out. “My 
brother and uncle will respect it as Mrs. Newcome’s dying wish. 
They must respect it.” 

The paper in question was a letter in ink that had grown 



A FRIEND IN NEED. 







THE NEWCOMES 775 

yellow from time, and was addressed by the late Mrs. Newcome to 
“my dear Mr. Luce.” 

“ That was her solicitor, my solicitor still,” interposes Miss 
Ethel. 

“ The Hermitage, March 14, 182—. 

“ My dear Mr. Luce” (the defunct lady wrote) — “ My late hus- 
band’s grandson has been staying with me lately, and is a most 
pleasing, handsome, and engaging little boy. He bears a strong 
likeness to his grandfather, I think ; and though he has no claims 
upon me , and I know is sufficiently provided for by his father, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C.B., of the East India Company’s 
Service, I am sure my late dear husband will be pleased that I 
should leave his grandson, Clive Newcome, a token of peace and 
good-will ; and I can do so with the more readiness, as it has 
pleased Heaven greatly to increase my means since my husband was 
called away hence. 

“ I desire to bequeath a sum equal to that which Mr. Newcome 
willed to my eldest son, Brian Newcome, Esq., to Mr. Newcome’s 
grandson, Clive Newcome ; and furthermore, that a token of my 
esteem and affection, a ring, or a piece of plate, of the value of ,£100, 
be given to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, my step-son, 
whose excellent conduct for many years , and whose repeated acts of 
gallantry in the service of his sovereign , have long obliterated the 
just feelings of displeasure with which I could not but view his early 
disobedience and misbehaviour , before he quitted England against 
my will and entered the military service. 

“ I beg you to prepare immediately a codicil to my will, pro- 
viding for the above bequests ; and desire that the amount of these 
legacies should be taken from the property bequeathed to my eldest 
son. You will be so good as to prepare the necessary document, 
and bring it with you when you come, on Saturday, to — Yours very 
truly, Sophia Alethea Newcome. 

“ Tuesday night.” 

I gave back the paper with a sigh to the finder. “ It is but 
a wish of Mrs. Newcome, my dear Miss Ethel,” I said. “ Pardon 
me if I say, I think I Lnow your elder brother too well to suppose 
that he will fulfil it.” 

“ He will fulfil it, sir, I am sure he will,” Miss Newcome said 
in a haughty manner. “ He would do as much without being asked, 
I am certain he would, did he know the depth of my dear uncle’s 
misfortune. Barnes is in London now, and ” 

“And you will write to him? I know what the answer will be.” 


776 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ I will go to him this very day, Mr. Pendennis ! I will go to 
my dear, dear uncle. I cannot bear to think of him in that place,” 
cried the young lady, the tears starting into her eyes. “ It was the 
will of Heaven. Oh, God be thanked for it ! Had we found my 
grandmamma’s letter earlier, Barnes would have paid the legacy 
immediately, and the money would have gone in that dreadful 
bankruptcy. I will go to Barnes to-day. Will you come with 
me? Won’t you come to your old friends? We may be at his 
— at Clive’s house this evening ; and oh, praise be to God ! there 
need be no more want in his family.” 

“ My dear friend, I will go with you round the world on such 
an errand,” I said, kissing her hand. How beautiful she looked ! 
the generous colour rose in her face, her voice thrilled with happiness. 
The music of Christmas church bells leaped up at this moment 
with joyful gratulations ; the face of the old house, before which 
we stood talking, shone out in the morning sun. 

“ You will come ? thank you ! I must run and tell Madame 
de Florae,” cried the happy young lady, and we entered the house 
together. 

“ How came you to be kissing Ethel’s hand, sir ; and what is 
the meaning of this early visit ? ” asks Mrs. Laura, as soon as I had 
returned to my own apartments. 

“ Martha, get me a carpet-bag ! I am going to London in an 
hour,” cries Mr. Pendennis. If I had kissed Ethel’s hand just now, 
delighted at the news which she brought to me, was not one a 
thousand times dearer to me, as happy as her friend ? I know who 
prayed with a thankful heart that day as we sped, in the almost 
solitary train, towards London. 


CHAPTER LXXVIII 


IN WHICH THE AUTHOR GOES ON A PLEASANT ERRAND 

B EFORE I parted with Miss Newcome at the station, she made 
me promise to see her on the morrow at an early hour at 
her brother’s house ; and having bidden her farewell and 
repaired to my own solitary residence, which presented but a dreary 
aspect on that festive day, I thought I would pay Howland Street 
a visit ; and if invited, eat my Christmas dinner with Clive. 

I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the 
day. He had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. 
“ He pays me pretty well, and I want all the money he will give 
me, Pen,” the painter said, rubbing on at his canvas. “ I am 
pretty easy in my mind since I have become acquainted with a 
virtuous dealer. I sell myself to him, body and soul, for some 
half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get my money, and he is 
regularly supplied with his pictures. But for Rosey’s illness we 
might carry on well enough.” 

Rosey’s illness ? I was sorry to hear of that ; and poor Clive, 
entering into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors 
rather more than a fourth of his year’s earnings. “There is a 
solemn fellow, to whom the women have taken a fancy, who lives 
but a few doors off in Gower Street ; and who, for his last sixteen 
visits, has taken sixteen pounds sixteen shillings out of my pocket with 
the most admirable gravity, and as if guineas grew there. He talks 
the fashions to my mother-in-law. My poor wife hangs on every 
word he says. Look ! There is his carriage coming up now ! and 
there is his fee, confound him ! ” says Clive, casting a rueful look 
towards a little packet lying upon the mantelpiece, by the side 
of that skinned figure in plaster of Paris which we have seen in 
most studios. 

I looked out of window and saw a certain Fashionable Doctor 
tripping out of his chariot; that Ladies’ Delight, who has subse- 
quently migrated from Bloomsbury to Belgravia ; and who has his 
polite foot now in a thousand nurseries and boudoirs. What Con- 
fessors were in old times, Quackenboss and his like are in our 
Protestant country. What secrets they know ! into what mystic 


778 


THE NEWCOMES 


chambers do they not enter ! I suppose the Campaigner made a 
special toilette to receive her fashionable friend, for that lady, attired 
in considerable splendour, and with the precious jewel on her head 
which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio two minutes 
after the Doctor’s visit was announced, and made me a low curtsey. 
I cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman. 

Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a 
lively air in addressing her. “Must work, you know, Christmas 
Day and all — for the owner of the pictures will call for them in the 
morning. Bring me a good report about Rosey, Mrs. Mackenzie, 
please — and if you will have the kindness to look by the ecorche 
there, you will see that little packet which I have left for you.” 
Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the money. I thought that plaster of 
Paris figure was not the only ecorche in the room. 

“ I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Pen, please,” 
cried Clive ; “ and be civil to her, will you 1 My dear old father is 
coming to dine here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other 
end of the town, and that his brothers do something for him. Not 
a word about Grey Friars. It might agitate Rosey, you know. 
Ah, isn’t he noble, the dear old boy ! and isn’t it fine to see him 
in that place ? ” Clive worked on as he talked, using up the last 
remnant of the light of Christmas Day, and was cleaning his palette 
and brushes, when Mrs. Mackenzie returned to us. 

Darling Rosey was very delicate, but Doctor Quackenboss was 
going to give her the very same medicine which had done the 
charming young Duchess of Clackmannanshire so much good, and 
he was not in the least disquiet. 

On this I cut into the conversation with anecdotes concerning 
the family of the Duchess of Clackmannanshire, remembering early 
days, when it used to be my sport to entertain the Campaigner with 
anecdotes of the aristocracy, about whose proceedings she still main- 
tained a laudable curiosity. Indeed, one of the few books escaped 
out of the wreck of Tyburn Gardens was a “ Peerage,” now a well- 
worn volume, much read by Rosey and her mother. 

The anecdotes were very politely received — perhaps it was the 
season which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than 
ordinarily good terms. When, turning to the Campaigner, Clive 
said he wished that she could persuade me to stay to dinner, she 
acquiesced graciously and at once in that proposal, and vowed that 
her daughter would be delighted if I could condescend to eat their 
humble fare. “ It is not such a dinner as you have seen at her 
house, with six side-dishes, two flanks, that splendid dpergne, and 
the silver dishes top and bottom ; but such as my Rosey has she 
offers with a willing heart” cries the Campaigner. 


THE NEWCOMES 779 

“And Tom may sit to dinner, mayn’t he, grandmamma?” asks 
Clive, in a humble voice. 

“ Oh, if you wish it, sir.” 

“ His grandfather will like to sit by him,” said Clive. “ I will 
go out and meet him ; he comes through Guilford Street and Russell 
Square,” says Clive. “ Will you walk, Pen ? ” 

“ Oh, pray don’t let us detain you,” says Mrs. Mackenzie, 
with a toss of her head : and when she retreated Clive whispered 
that she would not want me; for she looked to the roasting of 
the beef and the making of the pudding and the mince-pies. 

“ I thought she might have a finger in it,” I said ; and we set 
forth to meet the dear old father, who presently came, walking 
very slowly, along the line by which we expected him. His stick 
trembled as it fell on the pavement ; so did his voice, as he called 
out Clive’s name : so did his hand, as he stretched it to me. His 
body was bent, and feeble. Twenty years had not weakened him 
so much as the last score of months. I walked by the side of my 
two friends as they went onwards, linked lovingly together. How 
I longed for the morrow, and hoped they might be united once 
more ! Thomas Newcome’s voice, once so grave, went up to a 
treble, and became almost childish, as he asked after Boy. His 
white hair hung over his collar. I could see it by the gas under 
which we walked — and Clive’s great back and arm, as his father 
leaned on it, and his brave face turned towards the old man. 0 
Barnes Newcome, Barnes Newcome ! Be an honest man for once, 
and help your kinsfolk ! thought I. 

The Christmas meal went oft* in a friendly manner enough. 
The Campaigner’s eyes were everywhere : it was evident that the 
little maid who served the dinner, and had cooked a portion of it 
under their keen supervision, cowered under them, as well as other 
folks. Mrs. Mack did not make more than ten allusions to former 
splendours during the entertainment, or half as many apologies 
to me for sitting down to a table very different from that to 
which I was accustomed. Good, faithful F. Bayham was the 
only other guest. He complimented the mince-pies, so that 
Mrs. Mackenzie owned she had made them. The Colonel was 
very silent, but he tried to feed Boy, and was only once or twice 
sternly corrected by the Campaigner. Boy, in the best little 
words he could muster, asked why grandpapa wore a black 
cloak? Clive nudged my foot under the table. The secret of 
the Poor Brothership was very nearly out. The Colonel blushed, 
and with great presence of mind said he wore a cloak to keep 
him warm in winter. 

Rosey did not say much. She had grown lean and languid : 


780 


THE NEWCOMES 


the light of her eyes had gone out : all her pretty freshness had 
faded. She ate scarce anything, though her mother pressed her 
eagerly, and whispered loudly that a woman in her situation ought 
to strengthen herself. Poor Rosey was always in a situation. 

When the cloth was withdrawn, the Colonel bending his head 
said, “ Thank Cod for what we have received,” so reverently, and 
with an accent so touching, that Fred Bayham’s big eyes as he 
turned towards the old man filled up with tears. When his 
mother and grandmother rose to go away, poor little Boy cried to 
stay longer, and the Colonel would have meekly interposed, but 
the domineering Campaigner cried, “Nonsense, let him go to 
bed ! ” and flounced him out of the room : and nobody appealed 
against that sentence. Then we four remained, and strove to 
talk as cheerfully as we might, speaking now of old times, and 
presently of new. Without the slightest affectation, Thomas New- 
come told us that his life was comfortable, and that he was happy 
in it. He wished that many others of the old gentlemen, he said, 
were as contented as himself, but some of them grumbled sadly, he 
owned, and quarrelled with their bread and butter. He, for his 
part, had everything he could desire : all the officers of the 
establishment were most kind to him ; an excellent physician came 
to him when wanted; a most attentive woman waited on him, 
“ And if I wear a black gown,” said he, “ is not that uniform as 
good as another? and if we have to go to church every day, at 
which some of the Poor Brothers grumble, I think an old fellow 
can’t do better ; and I can say my prayers with a thankful heart, 
Clivy, my boy, and should be quite happy but for my — Tor my 
past imprudence, God forgive me ! Think of Bayham here coming 
to our chapel to-day ! — he often comes — that was very right, sir — 
very right.” 

Clive, filling a glass of wine, looked at F. B. with eyes that 
said “ God bless you.” F. B. gulped down another bumper. “ It 
is almost a merry Christmas,” said I ; “ and oh, I hope it will be 
a happy New Year ! ” 

Shortly after nine o’clock the Colonel rose to depart, saying he 
must be “in barracks” by ten; and Clive and F. B. went a part 
of the way with him. I would have followed them, but Clive 
whispered to me stay, and talk to Mrs. Mack, for Heaven’s 
sake, and that he would be back ere long. So I went and took 
tea with the two ladies ; and as we drank it, Mrs. Mackenzie 
took occasion to tell me she did not know what amount of income 
the Colonel had from his wealthy brother , but that they never 
received any benefit from it; and again she computed to me all 
the sums, principal and interest, which ought at that moment to 


THE NEWCOMES 


781 


belong to her darling Rosey. Rosey now and again made a feeble 
remark. She did not seem pleased or sorry when her husband 
came in ; and presently, dropping me a little curtsey, went to bed 
under charge of the Campaigner. So Bayham and I and Clive 
retired to the studio, where smoking was allowed, and where we 
brought that Christmas Day to an end. 

At the appointed time on the next forenoon I called upon Miss 
Newcome at her brother’s house. Sir Barnes Newcome was quitting 
his own door as I entered it, and he eyed me with such a severe 
countenance as made me augur but ill of the business upon which 
I came. The expression of Ethel’s face was scarcely more cheering : 
she was standing at the window* sternly looking at Sir Barnes, who 
yet lingered at his own threshold, having some altercation with his 
cab-boy ere he mounted his vehicle to drive into the City. 

Miss Newcome was very pale when she advanced and gave me 
her hand. I looked with some alarm into her face, and inquired 
what news ? 

“It is as you expected, Mr. Pendennis,” she said — “not as I 
did. My brother is averse to making restitution. He just now 
parted from me in some anger. But it does not matter; the 
restitution must be made, if not by Barnes, by one of our family 
— must it not ? ” 

“ God bless you for a noble creature, my dear dear Miss New- 
come ! ” was all I could say. 

“ For doing what is right ? Ought I not to do it 1 I am the 
eldest of our family after Barnes : I am the richest after him. 
Our father left all his younger children the very sum of money 
which Mrs. Newcome here devises to Clive ; and you know, besides, 
I have all my grandmother’s, Lady Kew’s property. Why, I don’t 
think I could sleep if this act of justice were not done. Will you 
come with me to my lawyer’s? He and my brother Barnes are 
trustees of my property ; and I have been thinking, dear Mr. Pen- 
dennis — and you are very good to be so kind, and to express so 
kind an opinion of me, and you and Laura have always always 
been the best friends to me ” — (she says this, taking one of my 
hands and placing her other hand over it) — “ I have been thinking, 
you know, that this transfer had better be made through Mr. Luce, 
you understand, and as coming from the family , and then I need 
not appear in it at all, you see ; and — and my dear good uncle’s 
pride need not be wounded.” She fairly gave way to tears as 
she spoke — and for me, I longed to kiss the hem of her robe, or 
anything else she would let me embrace, I was so happy, and 
so touched by the simple demeanour and affection of the noble 
young lady. 


782 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Dear Ethel,” I said, “ did I not say I would go to the end 
of the world with you — and won’t I go to Lincoln’s Inn ? ” 

A cab was straightway sent for, and in another half-hour we 
were in the presence of the courtly little old Mr. Luce, in his 
chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 

He knew the late Mrs. Newcome’s handwriting at once. He 
remembered having seen the little boy at the Hermitage, had 
talked with Mr. Newcome regarding his son in India, and had 
even encouraged Mrs. Newcome in her idea of leaving some token 
of good-will to the latter. “ I was to have dined with your grand- 
mamma on the Saturday, with my poor wife. Why, bless my 
soul ! I remember the circumstance perfectly well, my dear young 
lady. There can’t be a doubt about the letter, but of course the 
bequest is no bequest at all, and Colonel Newcome has behaved so 
ill to your brother that I suppose Sir Barnes will not go out of 
his way to benefit the Colonel.” 

“What would you do, Mr. Luce?” asks the young lady. 

“ Hm ! And pray why should I tell you what I should do 
under the circumstances ?” replied the little lawyer. “Upon my 
word, Miss Newcome, I think I should leave matters as they 
stand. Sir Barnes and I, you are aware, are not the very best 
of friends — as your father’s, your grandmother’s old friend and 
adviser, and your own too, my dear young lady, I and Sir Barnes 
Newcome remain on civil terms. But neither is overmuch pleased 
with the other, to say the truth ; and, at any rate, I cannot be 
accused — nor can any one else that I know of — of being a very 
warm partisan of your brother’s. But candidly, were his case 
mine — had I a relation who had called me unpleasant names, and 
threatened me I don’t know with what, with sword and pistol — 
who had put me to five or six thousand pounds’ expense in con- 
testing an election which I had lost, — I should give him, I think, 
no more than the law obliged me to give him ; and that, my dear 
Miss Newcome, is not one farthing.” 

“I am very glad you say so,” said Miss Newcome, rather to my 
astonishment. 

“Of course, my dear young lady; and so you need not be 
alarmed at showing your brother this document. Is not that the 
point about which you came to consult me? You wish that I 
should prepare him for the awful disclosure, do you not? You 
know, perhaps, that he does not like to part with his money, and 
thought the appearance of this note might agitate him? It has 
been a long time coming to its address, but nothing can be done, 
don’t you see? and be sure Sir Barnes Newcome will not be the 
least agitated when I tell him its contents.” 


THE NEWCOMES 


783 


“ I mean I am very glad you think my brother is not called 
upon to obey Mrs. Newcome’s wishes, because I need not think so 
hardly of him as I was disposed to do,” Miss Newcome said. “I 
showed him the paper this morning, and he repelled it with scorn ; 
and not kind words passed between us, Mr. Luce, and unkind 
thoughts remained in my mind. But if he, you think, is justified, 
it is I who have been in the wrong for saying that he was self — for 
upbraiding him as I own I did.” 

“You called him selfish ! — You had words with him ! Such 
things have happened before, my dear Miss Newcome, in the best 
regulated families.” 

“ But if he is not wrong, sir, holding his opinions, surely I 
should be wrong, sir, with mine, not to do as my conscience tells 
me; and having found this paper only yesterday at Newcome, in 
the library there, in one of my grandmother’s books, I consulted 
with this gentleman, the husband of my dearest friend, Mrs. 
Pendennis — the most intimate friend of my uncle and cousin Clive ; 
and I wish, and I desire and insist, that my share of what my poor 
father left us girls should be given to my cousin, Mr. Clive New- 
come, in accordance with my grandmother’s dying wishes.” 

“ My dear, you gave away your portion to your brothers and 
sisters ever so long ago ! ” cried the lawyer. 

“ I desire, sir, that six thousand pounds may be given to my 
cousin,” Miss Newcome said, blushing deeply. “My dear uncle, 
the best man in the world, whom I love with all my heart, sir, is 
in the most dreadful poverty. Do you know where he is, sir 1 ? My 
dear, kind, generous uncle ! ” — and, kindling as she spoke, and with 
eyes beaming a bright kindness, and flushing cheeks, and a voice 
that thrilled to the heart of those two who heard her, Miss Newcome 
went on to tell of her uncle’s and cousin’s misfortunes, and of her 
wish, under God, to relieve them. I see before me now the figure 
of the noble girl as she speaks ; the pleased little old lawyer, bob- 
bing his white head, looking up at her with his twinkling eyes — 
patting his knees, patting his snuffbox — as he sits before his tapes 
and his deeds, surrounded by a great background of tin boxes. 

“ And I understand you want this money paid as coming from 
the family, and not from Miss Newcome ? ” says Mr. Luce. 

“ Coming from the family — exactly ” — answers Miss Newcome. 

Mr. Luce rose up from his old chair — his worn-out old horsehair 
chair — where he had sat for half a century and listened to many a 
speaker very different from this one. “ Mr. Pendennis,” he said, 
“ I envy you your journey along with this young lady. I envy you 
the good news you are going to carry to your friends — and, Miss 
Newcome, as I am an old — old gentleman who have known your 


784 


THE NEWCOMES 


family these sixty years, and saw your father in his long-clothes, 
may I tell you how heartily and sincerely I — I love and respect 
you, my dear 1 ? When should you wish Mr. Clive Newcome to 
have his legacy ? ” 

“ I think I should like Mr. Pendennis to have it this instant, 
Mr. Luce, please,” said the young lady — and her veil dropped over 
her face as she bent her head down, and clasped her hands together 
for a moment, as if she were praying. 

Mr. Luce laughed at her impetuosity ; but said that if she 
was bent upon having the money, it was at her instant service ; 
and, before we left the room, Mr. Luce prepared a letter, addressed 
to Clive Newcome, Esquire, in which he stated, that amongst the 
books of the late Mrs. Newcome a paper had only just been found, 
of which a copy was enclosed, and that the family of the late Sir 
Brian Newcome, desirous to do honour to the wishes of the late 
Mrs. Newcome, had placed the sum of <£6000 at the bank of 

Messrs. H. W , at the disposal of Mr. Clive Newcome, of 

whom Mr. Luce had the honour to sign himself the most obedient 
servant, &c. And, the letter approved and copied, Mr. Luce said 
Mr. Pendennis might be the postman thereof, if Miss Newcome so 
willed it : and, with this document in my pocket, I quitted the 
lawyer’s chambers, with my good and beautiful young companion. 

Our cab had been waiting several hours in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 
and I asked Miss Ethel whither I now should conduct her ? 

“Where is Grey Friars'?” she said. “Mayn’t I go to see 
my uncle ? ” 


CHAPTER LXXIX 


IN WHICH OLD FRIENDS COME TOGETHER 

W E made the ascent of Snow Hill, we passed by the miry 
pens of Smithfield ; we travel through the street of St. 
John, and presently reach the ancient gateway in Cistercian 
Square, where lies the old Hospital of Grey Friars. I passed 
through the gate, my fair young companion on my arm, and made 
my way to the rooms occupied by Brother Newcome. 

As we traversed the court the Poor Brothers were coming from 
dinner. A couple of score, or more, of old gentlemen in black 
gowns, issued from the door of their refectory, and separated over 
the court, betaking themselves to their chambers. Ethel’s arm 
trembled under mine as she looked at one and another, expecting 
to behold her dear uncle’s familiar features. But he was not among 
the brethren. We went to his chamber, of which the door was 
open : a female attendant was arranging the room ; she told us 
Colonel Newcome was out for the day, and thus our journey had 
been made in vain. 

Ethel went round the apartment and surveyed its simple 
decorations ; she looked at the pictures of Clive and his boy ; the 
two sabres crossed over the mantelpiece, the Bible laid on the 
table, by the old latticed window. She walked slowly up to the 
humble bed, and sat down on a chair near it. No doubt her 
heart prayed for him who slept there ; . she turned round where 
his black Pensioner’s cloak was hanging on the wall, and lifted 
up the homely garment, and kissed it. The servant looked on, 
admiring, I should think, her melancholy and her gracious beauty. 
I whispered to the woman that the young lady was the Colonel’s 
niece. “He has a son who comes here, and is very handsome 
too,” said the attendant. 

The two women spoke together for a while. “ Oh, miss ! ” cried 
the elder and humbler, evidently astonished at some gratuity which 
Miss Newcome bestowed upon her, “ I didn’t want this to be good 
to him. Everybody here loves him for himself ; and I would sit up 
for him for weeks — that I would.” 

My companion took a pencil from her bag and wrote “Ethel” 
8 3d 


786 


THE NEWCOMES 


on a piece of paper, and laid the paper on the Bible. Darkness 
had again fallen by this time ; feeble lights were twinkling in the 
chamber windows of the Poor Brethren, as we issued into the courts, 
— feeble lights illumining a dim, grey, melancholy old scene. Many 
a career, once bright, was flickering out here in the darkness ; many 
a night was closing in. We went away silently from that quiet 
place ; and in another minute were in the flare and din and tumult 
of London. 

“The Colonel is most likely gone to Clive’s,” I said. Would 
not Miss Newcome follow him thither'? We consulted whether she 
should go. She took heart and said “Yes.” “Drive, cabman, to 
Howland Street ! ” The horse was, no doubt, tired, for the journey 
seemed extraordinarily long : I think neither of us spoke a word 
on the way. 

I ran upstairs to prepare our friends for the visit. Clive, his 
wife, his father, and his mother-in-law were seated by a dim light 
in Mrs. Clive’s sitting-room. Bosey on the sofa, as usual ; the little 
boy on his grandfather’s knees. 

I hardly made a bow to the ladies, so eager was I to communi- 
cate with Colonel Newcome. “ I have just been to your quarters 
at Grey Friars, sir,” said I. “ That is ” 

“You have been to the Hospital, sir! You need not be ashamed 
to mention it, as Colonel Newcome is not ashamed to go there ,” cried 
out the Campaigner. “ Pray speak in your own language, Clive, 
unless there is something not Jit for ladies to hear.” Clive was 
growling out to me in German that there had just been a terrible 
scene, his father having, a quarter of an hour previously, let slip the 
secret about Grey Friars. 

“ Say at once, Clive ! ” the Campaigner cried, rising in her might, 
and extending a great strong arm over her helpless child, “that 
Colonel Newcome owns that he has gone to live as a pauper in a 
hospital ! He who has squandered his own money — he who has 
squandered my money — he who has squandered the money of that 
darling helpless child — compose yourself, Rosey my love ! — has com- 
pleted the disgrace of the family, by his present mean and unworthy 
— yes, I say mean and unworthy and degraded conduct. Oh, my 
child, my blessed child ! to think that your husband’s father should 
have come to a workhouse 1 ” Whilst this maternal agony bursts 
over her, Rosey, on the sofa, bleats and whimpers amongst the faded 
chintz cushions. 

I took Clive’s hand, which was cast up to his head striking his 
forehead with mad impotent rage, whilst this fiend of a woman 
lashed his good father. The veins of his great fist were swollen, 
his whole body was throbbing and trembling with the helpless pain 


THE NEWCOMES 


787 


under which he writhed. “ Colonel Newcome’s friends, ma’am,” I 
said, “think very differently from you; and believe that he is a 
better judge than you, or any one else, of his own honour. We all, 
who loved him in his prosperity, love and respect him more than 
ever for the manner in which he bears his misfortune. Do you 

suppose that his noble friend, the Earl of H , would have 

counselled him to a step unworthy of a gentleman ; that the Prince 
de Montcontour would applaud his conduct as he does if he did not 
think it admirable ] ” I can hardly say with what scorn I used this 
argument, or what depth of contempt I felt for the woman whom I 
knew it would influence. “And at this minute,” I added, “I have 
come from visiting the Grey Friars with one of the Colonel’s rela- 
tives, whose love and respect for him is boundless ; who longs to be 
reconciled with him, and who is waiting below, eager to shake his 
hand, and embrace Clive’s wife.” 

“ Who is that ? ” says the Colonel, looking gently up, as he pats 
Boy’s head. 

“ Who is it, Pen ? ” says Clive. I said in a low voice “ Ethel ” ; 
and starting up and crying “ Ethel ! Ethel ! ” he ran from the room. 

Little Mrs. Rosey started up too on her sofa, clutching hold of 

the table-cover with her lean hand, and the two red spots on her 

cheeks burning more fiercely than ever. I could see what passion 

was beating in that poor little heart. Heaven help us ! what a 

resting-place had friends and parents prepared for it ! 

“ Miss Newcome, is it ? My darling Rosey, get on your shawl ! ” 
cried the Campaigner, a grim smile lighting her face. 

“It is Ethel ; Ethel is my niece. I used to love her when she 
was quite a little girl,” says the Colonel, patting Boy on the head ; 
“ and she is a very good, beautiful little child — a very good child.” 
The torture had been too much for that kind old heart : there were 
times when Thomas Newcome passed beyond it. What still mad- 
dened Clive, excited his father no more ; the pain yonder woman 
inflicted, only felled and stupefied him. 

As the door opened, the little white-headed child trotted forward 
towards the visitor, and Ethel entered on Clive’s arm, who was as 
haggard and pale as death. Little Boy, looking up at the stately 
lady, still followed beside her, as she approached her uncle, who 
remained sitting, his head bent to the ground. His thoughts were 
elsewhere. Indeed, he was following the child, and about to caress 
it again. 

“ Here is a friend, father ! ” says Clive, laying a hand on the 
old man’s shoulder. “ It is I, Ethel, uncle ! ” the young lady said, 
taking his hand ; and kneeling down between his knees, she flung her 
arms round him, and kissed him, and wept on his shoulder. His 


788 


THE NEWCOMES 


consciousness had quite returned ere an instant was over. He 
embraced her with the warmth of his old affection, uttering many- 
brief words of love, kindness, and tenderness, such as men speak 
when strongly moved. 

The little boy had come wondering up to the chair whilst this 
embrace took place, and Clive’s tall figure bent over the three. 
Rosey’s eyes were not good to look at, as she stared at the group 
with a ghastly smile. Mrs. Mackenzie surveyed the scene in haughty 
state, from behind the sofa cushions. She tried to take one of 
Rosey’s lean hot hands. The poor child tore it away, leaving her 
ring behind her ; lifted her hands to her face : and cried — cried as 
if her little heart would break. Ah me ! what a story was there ; 
what an outburst of pent-up feeling ! what a passion of pain ! The 
ring had fallen to the ground ; the little boy crept towards it, and 
picked it up, and came towards his mother, fixing on her his large 
wondering eyes. “ Mamma crying. Mamma’s ring ! ” he said, 
holding up the circle of gold. With more feeling than I had ever 
seen her exhibit, she clasped the boy in her wasted arms. Great 
Heaven ! what passion, jealousy, grief, despair, were tearing and 
trying all these hearts, that but for fate might have been happy ! 

Clive went round, and with the utmost sweetness and tenderness 
hanging round his child and wife, soothed her with words of conso- 
lation, that in truth I scarce heard, being ashamed almost of being 
present at this sudden scene. No one, however, took notice of the 
witnesses; and even Mrs. Mackenzie’s voice was silent for the 
moment. I dare say Clive’s words were incoherent; but women 
have more presence of mind ; and now Ethel, with a noble grace 
which I cannot attempt to describe, going up to Rosey, seated her- 
self by her, spoke of her long grief at the differences between her 
dearest uncle and herself ; of her early days, when he had been as 
a father to her ; of her wish, her hope that Rosey should love her 
as a sister ; and of her belief that better days and happiness were 
in store for them all. And she spoke to the mother about her boy 
so beautiful and intelligent, and told her how she had brought up 
her brother’s children, and hoped that this one too would call her 
Aunt Ethel. She would not stay now, might she come again? 
Would Rosey come to her with her little boy ? Would he kiss her? 
He did so with a very good grace ; but when Ethel at parting em- 
braced the child’s mother, Rosey’s face wore a smile ghastly to look 
at, and the lips that touched Ethel’s cheeks were quite white. 

“I shall come and see you again to-morrow, uncle, may I not? 
I saw your room to-day, sir, and your housekeeper ; such a nice old 
lady, and your black gown. And you shall put it on to-morrow, 
and walk with me, and show me the beautiful old buildings of the 


THE NEWCOMES 


789 


old Hospital. And I shall come and make tea for you — the house- 
keeper says I may. Will you come down with me to my carriage? 
No, Mr. Pendennis must come;” and she quitted the room, beckon- 
ing me after her. “You will speak to Clive now, won’t you?” 
she said, “ and come to me this evening, and tell me all before you 
go to bed ? ” I went back, anxious in truth to be the messenger of 
good tidings to my dear old friends. 

Brief as my absence had been, Mrs. Mackenzie had taken advan- 
tage of that moment again to outrage Clive and his father, and to 
announce that Rosey might go to see this Miss Newcome, whom 
people respected because she w T as rich, but whom she would never 
visit ; no, never ! “ An insolent, proud, impertinent thing ! Does 

she take me for a housemaid?” Mrs. Mackenzie had inquired. 
“ Am I dust to be trampled beneath her feet ? Am I a dog that 
she can’t throw me a word ? ” Her arms were stretched out, and she 
was making this inquiry as to her own canine qualities as I re-entered 
the room, and remembered that Ethel had never once addressed a 
single word to Mrs. Mackenzie in the course of her visit. 

I affected not to perceive the incident, and presently said that I 
wanted to speak to Clive in his studio. Knowing that I had brought 
my friend one or two commissions for drawings, Mrs. Mackenzie was 
civil to me, and did not object to our colloquies. 

“ Will you come too, and smoke a pipe, father ? ” says Clive. 

“Of course your father intends to stay to dinner ? ” says the 
Campaigner, with a scornful toss of her head. Clive groaned out 
as we were on the stair, “ that he could not bear this much longer, 
by heavens he could not ! ” 

“ Give the Colonel his pipe, Clive,” said I. “ Now, sir, down 
with you in the sitters’ chair, and smoke the sweetest cheroot you 
ever smoked in your life ! My dear dear old Clive ! you need not 
bear with the Campaigner any longer ; you may go to bed without 
this nightmare to-night if you like ; you may have your father back 
under your roof again.” 

“ My dear Arthur ! I must be back at ten, sir, back at ten, 
military time ; drum beats ; no — bell tolls at ten, and gates close ; ” 
and he laughed and shook his old head. “ Besides, I am to see a 
young lady, sir ; and she is coming to make tea for me, and I must 
speak to Mrs. Jones to have all things ready — all things ready ; ” 
and again the old man laughed as he spoke. 

His son looked at him and then at me with eyes full of sad 
meaning. “ How do you mean, Arthur,” Clive said, “ that he can 
come and stay with me, and that that woman can go ? ” 

Then feeling in my pocket for Mr. Luce’s letter, I grasped my 
dear Clive by the hand and bade him prepare for good news. I 


790 


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told him how providentially, two days since, Ethel, in the library at 
Newcome, looked into Orme’s “ History of India,” a book which old 
Mrs. Newcome had been reading on the night of her death, had dis- 
covered a paper, of which the accompanying letter enclosed a copy, 
and I gave my friend the letter. 

He opened it, and read it through. I cannot say that I saw 
any particular expression of wonder in his countenance, for somehow, 
all the while Clive perused this document, I was looking at the 
Colonel’s sweet kind face. “ It — it is Ethel’s doing,” said Clive, in 
a hurried voice. “ There was no such letter ” 

“ Upon my honour,” I answered, “ there was. We came up to 
London with it last night, a few hours after she had found it. We 
showed it to Sir Barnes Newcome, who — who could not disown it. 
We took it to Mr. Luce, who recognised it at once, who was old 
Mrs. Newcome’s man of business, and continues to be the family 
lawyer : and the family recognises the legacy and has paid it, and 
you may draw for it to-morrow, as you see. What a piece of good 
luck it is that it did not come before the B. B. C. time ! That 
confounded Bundelcund Bank would have swallowed up this, like all 
the rest.” 

“Father! father ! do you remember Orme’s ‘ History of India 1 ?’” 
cries Clive. 

“ Orme’s ‘ History ’ ! of course I do ; I could repeat whole pages 
of it when I was a boy,” says the old man, and began forthwith. 
“ ‘ The two battalions advanced against each other cannonading, until 
the French, coming to a hollow way, imagined that the English 
would not venture to pass it. But Major Lawrence ordered the 
sepoys and artillery — the sepoys and artillery to halt and defend the 
convoy against the Morattoes ’ — Morattoes Orme calls ’em. Ho ! 
ho ! I could repeat whole pages, sir.” 

“It is the best book that ever was written,” calls out Clive. 
The Colonel said he had not read it, but he was informed Mr. Mill’s 
was a very learned history ; he intended to read it. “ Eh ! there 
is plenty of time now,” said the good Colonel. “ I have all day 
long at Grey Friars, — after chapel, you know. Do you know, sir, 
when I was a boy I used what they call to tib out and run down 
to a public-house in Cistercian Lane — the ‘ Red Cow,’ sir, — and 
buy rum there ? I was a terrible wild boy, Clivy. You weren’t 
so, sir, thank Heaven ! A terrible wild boy, and my poor father 
flogged me, though I think it was very hard on me. It wasn’t the 
pain, you know : it wasn’t the pain, but . . . .” Here tears came 
into his eyes and he dropped his head on his hand, and the cigar 
fell from it on to the floor, burnt almost out, and scattering white 
ashes. 


THE NEWCOMES 


791 

Clive looked sadly at me. “ He was often so at Boulogne, 
Arthur,” he whispered ; “ after a scene with that — that woman 
yonder, his head would go : he never replied to her taunts : he bore 
her infernal cruelty without an unkind word. — Oh ! I can pay her 
back, thank God, I can pay her ! But who shall pay her,” he said, 
trembling in every limb, “ for what she has made that good man 
suffer % ” 

He turned to his father, who still sat lost in his meditations. 
“ You need never go back to Grey Friars, father ! ” he cried out. 

“ Not go back, Clivy ? Must go back, boy, to say Adsum when 
my name is called. ‘ Newcome ! ’ ‘ Adsum ! ’ Hey ! that is what 
we used to say — we used to say ! ” 

“You need not go back, except to pack your things, and return 
and live with me and Boy,” Clive continued, and he told Colonel 
Newcome rapidly the story of the legacy. The old man seemed 
hardly to comprehend it. When he did, the news scarcely elated 
him ; when Clive said “ they could now pay Mrs. Mackenzie,” the 
Colonel replied, “ Quite right, quite right,” and added up the sum, 
principal and interest, in which they were indebted to her — he knew 
it well enough, the good old man. “ Of course we shall pay her, 
Clivy, when we can ! ” But in spite of what Clive had said he did 
not appear to understand the fact, that the debt to Mrs. Mackenzie 
was now actually to be paid. 

As we were talking, a knock came to the studio door, and that 
summons was followed by the entrance of the maid, who said to 
Clive, “ If you please, sir, Mrs. Mackenzie says, how long are you 
a-going to keep the dinner waiting 1 ” 

“ Come, father, come to dinner ! ” cries Clive ; “ and, Pen, you 
will come too, won’t you'?” he added; “it may be the last time 
you dine in such pleasant company. Come along,” he whispered 
hurriedly. “ I should like you to be there, it will keep her tongue 
quiet.” As we proceeded to the dining-room, I gave the Colonel 
my arm ; and the good man prattled to me something about Mrs. 
Mackenzie having taken shares in the Bundelcund Banking Company, 
and about her not being a woman of business, and fancying we had 
spent her money. “ And I have always felt a wish that Clivy 
should pay her, and he will pay her, I know he will,” says the 
Colonel ; “ and then we shall lead a quiet life, Arthur ; for, between 
ourselves, some women are the deuce when they are angry, sir.” 
And again he laughed, as he told me this sly news, and he bowed 
meekly his gentle old head as we entered the dining-room. 

That apartment was occupied by little Boy already seated in 
his high chair and by the Campaigner only, who stood at the 
mantelpiece in a majestic attitude. On parting with her, before 


792 


THE NEWCOMES 


we adjourned to Clive’s studio, I had made my bow and taken 
my leave in form, not supposing that I was about to enjoy her 
hospitality yet once again. My return did not seem to please her. 
“Does Mr. Pendennis favour us with his company to dinner again, 
Clive'?” she said, turning to her son-in-law. Clive curtly said, 
“ Yes ; he had asked Mr. Pendennis to stay.” 

“You might at least have been so hind as to give me notice,” 
says the Campaigner, still majestic, but ironical. “You will have 
but a poor meal, Mr. Pendennis ; and one such as I am not accus- 
tomed to give my guests.” 

“ Cold beef ! what the deuce does it matter 1 ” says Clive, 
beginning to carve the joint, which, hot, had served out yesterday’s 
Christmas table. 

“ It does matter, sir ! I am not accustomed to treat my guests 
in this way. Maria ! who has been cutting that beef 1 ? Three 
pounds of that beef have been cut away since one o’clock to-day ; ” 
and with flashing eyes, and a finger twinkling all over with rings, 
she pointed towards the guilty joint. 

Whether Maria had been dispensing secret charities, or kept 
company with an occult policeman partial to roast beef, I do not 
know ; but she looked very much alarmed, and said, “ Indeed, and 
indeed, mum, she had not touched a morsel of it ! — not she.” 

“ Confound the beef ! ” says Clive, carving on. 

“ She has been cutting it ! ” cries the Campaigner, bringing her 
fist down with a thump upon the table. “ Mr. Pendennis ! you 
saw the beef yesterday; eighteen pounds it weighed, and this is 
what comes up of it ! As if there was not already ruin enough in 
the house ! ” 

“D n the beef! ” cries out Clive. 

“ No ! no ! Thank God for our good dinner ! Benedicti bene- 
dicamus, Clivy, my boy,” says the Colonel, in a tremulous voice. 

“ Swear on, sir ! let the child hear your oaths ! Let my blessed 
child, who is too ill to sit at table and picks her bit of sweetbread 
on her sofa, — which her poor mother prepares for her, Mr. Pen- 
dennis, — which I cooked it, and gave it to her with these hands , — 
let her hear your curses and blasphemies, Clive Newcome ! They 
are loud enough.” 

“ Do let us have a quiet life,” groans out Clive ; and for me, I 
confess, I kept my eyes steadily down upon my plate, nor dared to 
lift them, until my portion of cold beef had vanished. 

No further outbreak took place, until the appearance of the 
second course ; which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, 
of the plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent 
mince-pies from yesterday’s meal. Maria, I thought, looked par- 


THE NEWCOMES 793 

ticularly guilty, as these delicacies were placed on the table ; she 
set them down hastily, and was for operating an instant retreat. 

But the Campaigner shrieked after her, “Who has eaten that 
pudding ? I insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at 
two o’clock when I went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my 
darling child, and there’s pounds of it gone since then ! There 
were five mince-pies ! Mr. Pendennis ! you saw yourself there were 
five went away from table yesterday — where’s the other two, 
Maria] You leave the house this night, you thieving, wicked 
wretch — and I’ll thank you to come back to me afterwards for a 
character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine months, Mr. 
Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the greatest 
liar and the greatest thief.” 

At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and, as 
the phrase is, gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go ! 
wouldn’t she go 1 Pay her her wages, and let her go out of that 
’ell upon hearth, was Maria’s prayer. “ It isn’t you, sir,” she said, 
turning to Clive. “ You are good enough, and works hard enough 
to git the guineas which you give out to pay that Doctor ; and she 
don’t pay him — and I see five of them in her purse wrapped up in 
paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to him — and I heard her, 
and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she heard her. Go ! 
won’t I just go, I despises your puddens and pies ! ” and with a 
laugh of scorn this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the 
immediate vicinity of the Campaigner’s nose. 

“ I will pay her her wages, and she shall go this instant ! ” says 
Mrs. Mackenzie, taking her purse out. 

“ Pay me with them suvverings that you have got in it, wrapped 
up in paper. See if she haven’t, Mr. Newcome,” the refractory 
waiting-woman cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh. 

Mrs. Mackenzie briskly shut her portemonnaie, and rose up 
from table, quivering with indignant virtue. “ Go ! ” she exclaimed, 
“go and pack your trunks this instant! you quit the house this 
night, and a policeman shall see to your boxes before you leave it ! ” 

Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the 
Campaigner had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her 
pocket, — a handsome filigree gimcrack of poor Rosey’s, one of the 
relics of former splendours, — but, agitated by Maria’s insolence, the 
trembling hand missed the mark and the purse fell to the ground. 

Maria dashed at the purse in a moment, with a scream of 
laughter shook its contents upon the table, and sure enough, five 
little packets wrapped in paper rolled out upon the cloth, besides 
bank-notes and silver and gold coin. “I’m to go, am I] I’m a 
thief, am I ? ” screamed the girl, clapping her hands. “ / sor ’em 


THE NEWCOMES 


794 

yesterday when I was a-lacing of her; and thought of that pore 
young man working night and day to get the money ; — me a thief, 
indeed ! — I despise you, and / give you warning.” 

“ Do you wish to see me any longer insulted by this woman, 
Clive 'l Mr. Pendennis, I am shocked that you should witness such 
horrible vulgarity,” cries the Campaigner, turning to her guest. 
“Does the wretched creature suppose that I — I who have given 
thousands , I who have denied myself everything , I who have spent 
my all in support of this house ; and Colonel Newcome knows 
whether I have given thousands or not, and who has spent them, 
and ivho has been robbed, I say, and ” 

“ Here ! you ! Maria ! go about your business,” shouted out 
Clive Newcome, starting up ; “go and pack your trunks if you like, 
and pack this woman’s trunks too. Mrs. Mackenzie, I can bear 
you no more ; go in peace, and if you wish to see your daughter she 
shall come to you ; but I will never, so help me God ! sleep under 
the same roof with you ; or break the same crust with you ; or 
bear your infernal cruelty ; or sit to hear my father insulted ; or 
listen to your wicked pride and folly more. There has not been 
a day since you thrust your cursed foot into our wretched house, 
but you have tortured one and all of us. Look here, at the best 
gentleman, and the kindest heart in all the world, you fiend ! and 
see to what a condition you have brought him ! Dearest father ! 
she is going, do you hear ? She leaves us, and you will come back 
to me, won’t you 1 ? Great God ! woman,” he gasped out, “do you 
know what you have made me suffer — what you have done to this 
good man ? Pardon, father, pardon ! ” — and he sank down by his 
father’s side, sobbing with passionate emotion. The old man even 
now did not seem to comprehend the scene. When he heard that 
woman’s voice in anger, a sort of stupor came over him. 

“I am a fiend, am I 1 ?” cries the lady. “You hear, Mr. Pen- 
dennis, this is the language to which I am accustomed. I am a 
widow, and I trusted my child and my all to that old man ; he 
robbed me and my darling of almost every farthing we had ; and 
what has been my return for such baseness ? I have lived in this 
house and toiled like a slave ; I have acted as servant to my blessed 
child ; night after night I have sat with her ; and month after 
month, when her husband has been away, I have nursed that poor 
innocent; and the father having robbed me, the son turns me out 
of doors ! ” 

A sad thing it was to witness, and a painful proof how frequent 
were these battles, that, as this one raged, the poor little boy sat 
almost careless, whilst his bewildered grandfather stroked his golden 
head 1 “ It is quite clear to me, madam,” I said, turning to Mrs. 


THE NEWCOMES 


795 

Mackenzie, “that you and your son-in-law are better apart; and 
I came to tell him to-day of a most fortunate legacy, which has 
just been left to him, and which will enable him to pay you to- 
morrow morning every shilling, every shilling which he does not 
owe you.” 

“I will not leave this house until I am paid every shilling of 
which I have been robbed,” hissed out Mrs. Mackenzie ; and she sat 
down folding her arms across her chest. 

“I am sorry,” groaned out Clive, wiping the sweat off his brow, 
“ I used a harsh word ; I will never sleep under the same roof with 
you. To-morrow I will pay you what you claim ; and the best 
chance I have of forgiving you the evil which you have done me, is 
that we should never meet again. Will you give me a bed at your 
house, Arthur ] Father, will you come out and walk ? Good-night, 
Mrs. Mackenzie : Pendennis will settle with you in the morning. 
You will not be here, if you please, when I return ; and so God 
forgive you, and farewell.” 

Mrs. Mackenzie in a tragic manner dashed aside the hand 
which poor Clive held out to her, and disappeared from the scene of 
this dismal dinner. Boy presently fell a-crying : in spite of all the 
battle and fury, there was sleep in his eyes. 

“ Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed,” said Clive, 
with a sad smile; “shall we do it, father 1 ? Come, Tommy, my 
son ! ” and he folded his arms round the child, and walked with 
him to the upper regions. The old man’s eyes lighted up; his 
scared thoughts returned to him ; he followed his two children up 
the stairs, and saw his grandson in his little bed ; and, as we walked 
home with him, he told me how sweetly Boy said “ Our Father,” 
and prayed God bless all those who loved him, as they laid him 
to rest. 

So these three generations had joined in that supplication : the 
strong man, humbled by trial and grief, whose loyal heart was yet 
full of love ; — the child, of the sweet age of those little ones whom 
the Blessed Speaker of the prayer first bade to come unto Him ; — 
and the old man, whose heart was well-nigh as tender and as in- 
nocent : and whose day was approaching, when he should be drawn 
to the bosom of the Eternal Pity. 


CHAPTER LXXX 


IN WHICH THE COLONEL SAYS “ADSVM” WHEN HIS NAME 
IS CALLED 

HE vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with 



his mother-in-law, or to sleep under the same roof with her, 


* was broken on the very next day. A stronger will than the 
young man’s intervened, and he had to confess the impotence of his 
wrath before that superior power. In the forenoon of the day 
following that unlucky dinner, I went with my friend to the 
banking-house whither Mr. Luce’s letter directed us, and carried 
away with me the principal sum, in which the Campaigner said 
Colonel Newcome was indebted to her, with the interest accurately 
computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of 
money to the dear old Poor Brother of Grey Friars ; and he pro- 
mised to return with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen 
Square. I had received a letter from Laura by the morning’s post, 
announcing her return by the express train from Newcome, and 
desiring that a spare bedroom should be got ready for a friend who 
accompanied her. 

On reaching Howdand Street, Clive’s door was opened, rather 
to my surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had re- 
ceived her dismissal on the previous night ; and the Doctor’s 
carriage drove up as she was still speaking to me. The polite 
practitioner sped upstairs to Mrs. Newcome’s apartment. Mrs. 
Mackenzie, in a robe-de-cliambre and cap very different from 
yesterday’s, came out eagerly to meet the physician on the land- 
ing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a 
cab, which discharged an elderly person with her bandbox and 
bundles ; I had no difficulty in recognising a professional nurse in 
the new-comer. She too disappeared into the sick-room, and left 
me sitting in the neighbouring chamber, the scene of the last 
night’s quarrel. 

Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she 
had not the heart to go away now she was wanted ; that they had 
passed a sad night, and that no one had been to bed. Master 
Tommy was below, and the landlady taking care of him : the land- 


THE NEWCOMES 


797 

lord had gone out for the nurse. Mrs. Clive had been taken bad 
after Mr. Clive went away the night before. Mrs. Mackenzie had 
gone to the poor young thing, and there she went on, crying, and 
screaming, and stamping, as she used to do in her tantrums, which 
was most cruel of her, and made Mrs. Clive so ill. And presently 
the young lady began : my informant told me. She came scream- 
ing into the sitting-room, her hair over her shoulders, calling out 
she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like 
a mad woman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics ; 
and there was her mother, kneeling, and crying, and calling out to 
her darling child to calm herself, — which it was all her own 
doing, and she had much better have held her own tongue, re- 
marked the resolute Maria. I understood only too well from the 
girl’s account what had happened, and that Clive, if resolved to 
part with his mother-in-law, should not have left her, even for 
twelve hours, in possession of his house. The wretched woman, 
whose Self was always predominant, and who, though she loved 
her daughter after her own fashion, never forget her ow 7 n vanity 
or passion, had improved the occasion of Clive’s absence : worked 
upon her child’s weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, 
no doubt, into the fever which yonder physician was called to 
quell. 

The Doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed 
by Clive’s mother-in-law, who had cast Rosey’s fine Cashmere shawl 
over her shoulders, to hide her disarray. “You here still, Mr. 
Pendennis ! ” she exclaims. She knew I was there. Had not she 
changed her dress in order to receive me % 

“ I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, 
and then I shall go,” I replied gravely. 

“ Oh, sir ! to what a scene you have come ! To w 7 hat a state 
has Clive’s conduct last night driven my darling child ! ” 

As the odious woman spoke so, the Doctor’s keen eyes, looking 
up from the prescription, caught mine. “ I declare before Heaven, 
madam,” I said hotly, “ I believe you yourself are the cause of your 
daughter’s present illness, as you have been of the misery of my 
friends.” 

“ Is this, sir,” she was breaking out, “ is this language to be 
used to 1 ” 

“ Madam, will you be silent ? ” I said. “ I am come to bid 
you farewell on the part of those whom your temper has driven 
into infernal torture. I am come to pay you every halfpenny of 
the sum which my friends do not owe you, but which they restore. 
Here is the account, and here is the money to settle it. And I 
take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no doubt, you have 


798 


THE NEWCOMES 


imparted what you call your wrongs” (the Doctor smiled, and 
shrugged his shoulders), “ that now you are paid.” 

“ A widow — a poor, lonely, insulted widow ! ” cries the 
Campaigner, with trembling hands, taking possession of the 
notes. 

“ And I wish to know,” I continued, “ when my friend’s house 
will be free to him, and he can return in peace 'l ” 

Here Rosey’s voice was heard from the inner apartment, scream- 
ing, “ Mamma, mamma ! ” 

“I go to my child, sir,” she said. “ If Captain Mackenzie had 
been alive, you would not have dared to insult me so.” And 
carrying off her money, she left us. 

“ Cannot she be got out of the house ? ” I said to the Doctor. 
“ My friend will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief 
she is the cause of her daughter’s present illness.” 

“Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcome was in a very 
very delicate state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous 
temper, who expresses herself very strongly — too strongly, I own. 
In consequence of unpleasant family discussions, which no physician 
can prevent, Mrs. Newcome has been wrought up to a state of — 
of agitation. Her fever is, in fact, at present, very high. You 
know her condition. I am apprehensive of ulterior consequences. 
I have recommended an excellent and experienced nurse to her. 
Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner, is a most able practi- 
tioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours, and I trust 
that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go 
well.” 

“ Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir 1 ” I asked. 

“ Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. 
Mackenzie is certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. New- 
come’s present state I cannot take upon myself to separate 
them. Mr. Newcome may return, and I do think and believe 
that his presence may tend to impose silence and restore tran- 
quillity.” 

I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings. The 
poor fellow must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the 
issue of his wife’s illness. I saw Thomas Newcome could not sleep 
under his son’s roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so 
desired, was delayed, who could say for how long 1 

“ The Colonel may come to us,” I thought ; “ our old house is 
big enough.” I guessed who was the friend comiug in my wife’s 
company ; and pleased myself by thinking that two friends so dear 
should meet in our home. Bent upon these plans, I repaired to 
Grey Friars, and to Thomas Newcome’s chamber there. 


THE NEWCOMES 


799 

Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards 
me with a finger on his lip, and a sad sad countenance. He 
closed the door gently behind him, and led me into the court. 
“Clive is with him, and Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He 
does not know them,” said Bayham with a sob. “ He calls out 
for both of them : they are sitting there, and he does not know 
them. 

In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, 
as we paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. 
The old man must have passed a sleepless night, for on going to his 
chamber in the morning, his attendant found him dressed in his 
chair, and his bed undisturbed. He must have sat all through the 
bitter night without a fire ; but his hands were burning hot, and he 
rambled in his talk. He spoke of some one coming to drink tea 
with him, pointed to the fire, and asked why it was not made ; he 
would not go to bed, though the nurse pressed him. The bell 
began to ring for morning chapel ; he got up and went towards his 
gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly see, and put it 
over his shoulders, and would go out, but he would have fallen in 
the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm ; and the 
physician of the Hospital, passing fortunately at this moment, who 
had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcome’s, insisted upon 
leading him back to his room again, and got him to bed. “ When 
the bell stopped, he wanted to rise once more ; he fancied he was 
a boy at school again,” said the nurse, “ and that he was going in 
to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago.” 
So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the 
good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humili- 
ation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and 
Thomas Newcome was stricken down. 

Bay ham’s story told, I entered the room, over which the twilight 
was falling, and saw the figures of Clive and Ethel seated at each end 
of the bed. The poor old man within it was calling in incoherent 
sentences. I had to call Clive from the present grief before him, 
with intelligence of further sickness awaiting him at home. Our 
poor patient did not heed what I said to his son. “ You must go 
home to Rosey,” Ethel said. “She will be sure to ask for her 
husband, and forgiveness is best, dear Clive. I will stay with uncle. 
I will never leave him. Please God, he will be better in the morn- 
ing when you come back.” So Clive’s duty called him to his own 
sad home ; and, the bearer of dismal tidings, I returned to mine. 
The fires were lit there, and the table spread ; and kind hearts were 
waiting to welcome the friend who never more was to enter my 
door. 


800 


THE NEWCOMES 


It may be imagined that the intelligence which I brought 
alarmed and afflicted my wife, and Madame de Florae, our guest. 
Laura immediately went away to Rosey’s house to offer her services 
if needed. The accounts which she brought thence were very bad : 
Clive came to her for a minute or two, but Mrs. Mackenzie could 
not see her. Should she not bring the little boy home to her 
children 1 Laura asked; and Clive thankfully accepted that offer. 
The little man slept in our nursery that night, and was at play 
with our young ones on the morrow — happy and unconscious of the 
fate impending over his home. 

Yet two more days passed, and I had to take two advertise- 
ments to the Times newspaper on the part of poor Clive. Among 
the announcements of Births was printed, “ On the 28th, in 
Howland Street, Mrs. Clive Newcome of a son, still-born.” And 

a little lower, in the third division of the same column, appeared 

the words, *• On the 29th, in Howland Street, aged 26, Rosalind, 
wife of Clive Newcome, Esq. ,; So, one day, shall the names of 
all of us be written there ; to be deplored by how many '( — to be 
remembered how long 1 — to occasion what tears, praises, sympathy, 
censure ? — yet for a day or two, while the busy world has time to 
recollect us who have passed beyond it. So this poor little flower 
had bloomed for its little day, and pined, and withered, and perished. 
There was only one friend by Clive’s side following the humble 
procession which laid poor Rosey and her child out of sight of a 

world that had been but unkind to her. Not many tears were 

there to water her lonely little grave. A grief that was akin to 
shame and remorse humbled him as he knelt over her. Poor little 
harmless lady ! no more childish triumphs and vanities, no more 
hidden griefs are you to enjoy or suffer ; and earth closes over your 
simple pleasures and tears ! The snow was falling and whitening 
the coffin as they lowered it into the ground. It was at the same 
cemetery in which Lady Kew was buried. I dare say the same 
clergyman read the same service over the two graves, as he will 
read it for you or any of us to-morrow; and until his own turn 
comes. Come away from the place, poor Clive ! Come sit with 
your orphan little boy, and bear him on your knee, and hug him 
to your heart. He seems yours now, and all a father’s love may 
pour out upon him. Until this hour, Fate uncontrollable and home 
tyranny had separated him from you. 

It was touching to see the eagerness and tenderness with which 
the great strong man now assumed the guardianship of the child, 
and endowed him with his entire wealth of affection. The little 
boy now ran to Clive whenever he came in, and sat for hours prattling 


THE NEWCOMES 


801 


to him. He would take the boy out to walk, and from our windows 
we could see Clive’s black figure striding over the snow in St. 
James’s Park, the little man trotting beside him, or perched on 
his father’s shoulder. My wife and I looked at them one morning 
as they were making their way towards the City. “He has in- 
herited that loving heart from his father,” Laura said ; and he 
is paying over the whole property to his son.” 

Clive, and the boy sometimes with him, used to go daily to 
Grey Friars, where the Colonel still lay ill. After some days 
the fever which had attacked him left him ; but left him so weak 
and enfeebled that he could only go from his bed to the chair by 
his fireside. The season was exceedingly bitter, the chamber which 
he inhabited was warm and spacious ; it was considered unadvisable 
to move him until he had attained greater strength, and till warmer 
weather. The medical men of the house hoped he might rally 
in spring. My friend, Dr. Goodenough, came to him : he hoped 
too ; but not with a hopeful face. A chamber, luckily vacant, 
hard by the Colonel’s, was assigned to his friends, where we sat 
when we were too many for him. Besides his customary attendant, 
he had two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always 
with him — Ethel and Madame de Florae, who had passed many 
a faithful year by an old man’s bedside; who would have come, 
as to a work of religion, to any sick couch, much more to this 
one, where he lay for whose life she would once gladly have given 
her own. 

But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no 
more our friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good 
to every one round him, as his wont was ; especially when Boy 
came, his old eyes lighted up with simple happiness, and, with 
eager trembling hands, he would seek under his bedclothes, or in 
the pockets of his dressing-gown, for toys or cakes, which he had 
caused to be purchased for his grandson. There was a little 
laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to 
whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms 
of his returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his 
calling for this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and 
merry ways; and who, to the old gentleman’s unfailing delight, 

used to call him “ Codd Colonel.” “ Tell little F , that Codd 

Colonel wants to see him ; ” and the little gown-boy was brought 
to him ; and the Colonel would listen to him for hours ; and hear all 
about his lessons and his play ; and prattle, almost as childishly, 
about Dr. Raine, and his own early school-days. The boys of the 
school, it must be said, had heard the noble old gentleman’s touching 

8 3 E 


802 


THE NEWCOMBS 


history, and had all got to know and love him. They came every 
day to hear news of him ; sent him in hooks and papers to amuse 
him; and some benevolent young souls — God’s blessing on all 
honest boys, say I — painted theatrical characters, and sent them 
in to Codd Colonel’s grandson. The little fellow was made free 
of gown-boys, and once came thence to his grandfather in a little 
gown, which delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would 
like to be a little gown-boy ; and I make no doubt, when he is 
old enough, his father will get him that post, and put him under 
the tuition of my friend Dr. Senior. 

So weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still 
remained with us. His mind Was gone at intervals, but would 
rally feebly ; and with his consciousness returned his love, his 
simplicity, his sweetness. He would talk French with Madame 
de Florae, at which time his memory appeared to awaken with 
surprising vividness, his cheek flushed, and he was a youth again, 
— a youth all love and hope, — a stricken old man, with a beard 
as white as snow covering the noble careworn face. At such times 
he called her by her Christian name of L4onore; he addressed 
courtly old words of regard and kindness to the aged lady ; anon 
he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her as if they still were 
young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure ; no anger 
remained in it ; no guile tainted it ; only peace and good-wili 
dwelt in it. 

Rosey’s death had seemed to shock him for a while when the 
unconscious little boy spoke of it. Before that circumstance, Clive 
had even forborne to wear mourning, lest the news should agitate 
his father. The Colonel remained silent and was very much 
disturbed all that day, but he never appeared to comprehend the 
fact quite; and, once or twice afterwards, asked, Why she did 
not come to see him ? She was prevented, he supposed — she was 
prevented, he said, with a look of terror : he never once otherwise 
alluded to that unlucky tyrant of his household, who had made 
his last years so unhappy. 

The circumstance of Clive’s legacy he never understood : but 
more than once spoke of Barnes to Ethel, and sent his compliments 
to him, and said he should like to shake him by the hand. Barnes 
Newcome never once offered to touch that honoured hand, though 
his sister bore her uncle’s message to him. They came often from 
Bryanstone Square; Mrs. Hobson even offered to sit with the 
Colonel, and read to him, and brought him books for his improve- 
ment. But her presence disturbed him ; he cared not for her 
books ; the two nurses whom he loved faithfully watched him ; and 
my wife and I were admitted to him sometimes, both of whom he 


THE NEWCOMES 


803 


honoured with regard and recognition. As for F. B., in order to 
be near his Colonel, did not that good fellow take up his lodging 
in Cistercian Lane, at the “ Red Cow ” ? He is one whose errors, 
let us hope, shall be pardoned, quia multum amavit. I am sure 
he felt ten times more joy at hearing of Clive’s legacy than if 
thousands had been bequeathed to himself. May good health and 
good fortune speed him ! 

The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to 
flicker and fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for his bed 
in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next 
morning was too weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed, and 
his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked for his little 
gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sat by the bed 
with a very awe-stricken face ; and then gathered courage, and 
tried to amuse him by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and 
they were having a cricket-match with the St. Peter’s boys in the 
green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The Colonel quite 
understood about it ; he would like to see the game ; he had 
played many a game on that green when he was a boy. He grew 
excited ; Clive dismissed his father’s little friend, and put a 
sovereign into his hand ; and away he ran to say that Codd Colonel 
had come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, and to see the match 
out. /, curve , little white-haired gown-boy ! Heaven speed you, 
little friend ! 

After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander 
more and more. He talked louder ; he gave the word of command, 
spoke Hindustanee as if to his men. Then he spoke words in 
French rapidly, seizing a hand that was near him, and crying, 
“ Toujours, toujours ! ” But it was Ethel’s hand which he took. 
Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him ; the 
nurse came to us, who were sitting in the adjoining apartment; 
Madame de Florae was there, with my wife and Bay ham. 

At the look in the woman’s countenance Madame de Florae 
started up. “ He is very bad, he wanders a great deal,” the nurse 
whispered. The French lady fell instantly on her knees, and 
remained rigid in prayer. 

Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face to our 
pale group. “ He is calling for you again, dear lady,” she said, 
going up to Madame de Florae, who was still kneeling; “and just 
now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He 
will not know you.” She hid her tears as she spoke. 

She went into the room where Clive was at the bed’s foot ; 
the old man within it talked on rapidly for a while : then again 
he would sigh and be still : once more I heard him say hurriedly. 


804 


THE NEWCOMES 


“ Take care of him when I’m in India ; ” and then with a heart- 
rending voice he called out, “L&more, Ldonore.” She was 
kneeling by his side now. The patient’s voice sank into faint 
murmurs ; only a moan now and then announced that he was 
not asleep. 

At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, 
and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat time. 
And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone 
over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly 
said “Adsum!” and fell back. It was the word we used at 
school, when names were called ; and lo, he, whose heart was as 
that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in 
the presence of The Master. 


Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant 
fields near to Berne, in Switzerland, I strayed from them into a 
little wood; and, coming out of it presently, told them how the 
story had been revealed to me somehow, which for three-and- 
twenty months the reader has been pleased to follow. As I write 
the last line with a rather sad heart, Pendennis and Laura, and 
Ethel and Clive, fade away into Fable-land. I hardly know 
whether they are not true ; whether they do not live near us 
somewhere. They were alive, and I heard their voices ; but five 
minutes since was touched by their grief. And have we parted 
with them here on a sudden, and without so much as a shake of 

the hand? Is yonder line ( ) which I drew with my own 

pen, a barrier between me and Hades as it were, across which I 
can see those figures retreating and only dimly glimmering 1 Before 
taking leave of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, might he not have told us 
whether Miss Ethel married anybody finally ? It was provoking 
that he should retire to the shades without answering that senti- 
mental question. 

But though he has disappeared as irrevocably as Eurydice, 
these minor questions may settle the major one above mentioned. 
How could Pendennis have got all that information about Ethel’s 
goings on at Baden, and with Lord Kew, unless she had told some- 
body — her husband, for instance, who, having made Pendennis an 
early confidant in his amour, gave him the whole story ? “ Clive,” 

Pendennis writes expressly, “is travelling abroad with his wife.” 
Who is that wife ? By a most monstrous blunder, Mr. Pendennis 


THE NEWCOMES 


805 


killed Lord Farintosh’s mother at one page and brought her to 
life again at another; but Rosey, who is so lately consigned to 
Kensal Green, it is not surely with her that Clive is travelling, 
for then Mrs. Mackenzie would probably be with them to a live 
certainty, and the tour would be by no means pleasant. How 
could Pendennis have got all those private letters, &c., but that 
the Colonel kept them in a teak box, which Clive inherited and. 
made over to his friend? My belief then is, that in Fable-land 
somewhere Ethel and Clive are living most comfortably together : 
that she is immensely fond of his little boy, and a great .deal 
happier now than they would have been had they married at first, 
when they took a liking to each other as young people. That 
picture of J. J.’s of Mrs. Clive Newcome (in the Crystal Palace 
Exhibition in Fable-land) is certainly not in the least like Rosey, 
who we read was fair; but it represents a tall, handsome, dark 
lady, who must be Mrs. Ethel. 

Again, why did Pendennis introduce J. J. with such a flourish, 
giving us, as it were, an overture, and no piece to follow it ? 
J. J.’s history, let me confidentially state, has been revealed to 
me too, and may be told some of these fine summer months, or 
Christmas evenings, when the kind reader has leisure to hear. 

What about Sir Barnes Newcome ultimately? My impression 
is that he is married again, and it is my fervent hope that his 
present wife bullies him. Mrs. Mackenzie cannot have the face to 
keep that money which Clive paid over to her, beyond her lifetime : 
and will certainly leave it and her savings to little Tommy. I 
should not be surprised if Madame (le Montcontour left a smart 
legacy to the Pendennis children ; and Lord Kew stood godfather in 
case — in case Mr. and Mrs. Clive wanted such an article. But have 
they any children? I, for my part, should like her best without, 
and entirely devoted to little Tommy. But for you, dear friend, it 
is as you like. You may settle your Fable-land in your own 
fashion. Anything you like happens in Fable-land. Wicked folks 
die a propos (for instance, that death of Lady Kew was most artful, 
for if she had not died, don’t you see that Ethel would have married 
Lord Farintosh the next week ?) — annoying folks are got out of the 
way ; the poor are rewarded — the upstarts are set down in Fable- 
land — the frog bursts with wicked rage, the fox is caught in his 
trap, the lamb is rescued from the wolf, and so forth, just in the 
nick of time. And the poet of Fable-land rewards and punishes 
absolutely. He splendidly deals out bags of sovereigns, which 
won’t buy anything; belabours wicked backs with awful blows, 
which do not hurt ; endows heroines with preternatural beauty, and 
creates heroes, who, if ugly sometimes, yet possess a thousand good 


806 


THE NEWCOMES 


qualities, and usually end by being immensely rich ; makes the hero 
and heroine happy at last, and happy ever after. Ah, happy, 
harmless Fable-land, where these things are ! Friendly reader ! 
may you and the author meet there on some future day ! He 
hopes so ; as he yet keeps a lingering hold of your hand, and bids 
you farewell with a kind heart. 

Paris : 28 th June 1855 . 


THE END 


























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